Drew J. Strait, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins; MATGA Program Director
About Drew
Drew J. Strait, PhD, brings a contagious enthusiasm for the world of the earliest Christians to his work as a pastoral theologian and theological animator of Scripture, seeking to connect the dots between early Christians鈥� radical discipleship and the ways Jesus followers can challenge empire and its theologies of oppression today. Drew鈥檚 passion for the church鈥檚 mission of peacebuilding has led him to various ministry contexts, including relief work with Haitian refugees in the Dominican Republic, an interim pastor role at Living Water Community Church in Chicago (Mennonite Church USA) and serving as an elder at Peace Fellowship in Washington, D.C. Prior to coming to bg真人, he taught New Testament for five years at St. Mary鈥檚 Ecumenical Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.
How does the Bible shape your vocation as a professor?
I discovered the Anabaptist tradition in my early 20s after the United States鈥� preemptive invasion of Iraq. At the time, I was bewildered by many Christians who I witnessed cheering on the shock-and awe campaign, which included the mutilation of innocent civilians. This experience generated a desire to better understand the relationship between the teachings of Jesus and the church鈥檚 posture toward empire, nationalism, and military domination.
For me, to teach the Bible responsibly means to acknowledge that the Bible鈥檚 interpreters have been a force for the common good and a force for oppression and violent extremism in the history of interpretation. This is an uncomfortable reality. I invite my students to grapple with biblical authoritarianism and to imagine鈥攖ogether鈥攈ow we can reclaim biblical interpretation as a public site for peacebuilding and challenging cultural and direct violence.
What can students expect in your classroom?
My passion is to bring the world of early Judaism and Greco-Roman antiquity alive for students of the New Testament to do theological animation for the life of the world. I try to achieve this through engaging lectures, classroom discussions, small-group exegesis exercises, and robust dialogue about how biblical interpretation can challenge political idolatry and violent extremism.
I also teach out of the conviction that Scripture is best interpreted in community. This means getting to know one another鈥檚 stories and bringing our stories to bear on Scripture鈥攁ttending to how our own lenses can bend and distort the biblical narrative.
Finally, I try to instill in my students that our optics on Scripture are profoundly shaped by our social location. As my students read primary and especially secondary sources on Christian origins, we aim not to read in the echo chamber of the ivory tower or get lost in the whiteness and maleness that is the history of interpretation. Instead, my students can expect to encounter the voices of marginalized interpreters鈥攂oth written and oral鈥攁s we build a vibrant and diverse interpretive community together.
What are some of the most pressing challenges you see facing current and future church leaders and Christian scholars?
One challenge that stands out to me is the need to reclaim the unarmed, global church (rather than the state) as the primary context for Christian mission and witness. The controlling narrative in many Christian circles is not Jesus and the kingdom of God. Rather, ethno-national loyalties and partisan political allegiances fund Christian identity. My aim is to flip this script by empowering disciples with the theological imagination to prioritize allegiance to the kingdom of God, with all the countercultural habits that this worldview entails.
In North America, and especially in the United States, the allure of state and military power coupled with fear of the other and a legacy of white supremacy has produced Christian communities intoxicated with power. We need pastors and leaders with the skills to animate the early Christian movement for this moment of growing fascist politics and Christian nationalism. This means immersion in primary and secondary sources as well as in prayer, non- violent civil resistance, and singing communities that fully embody 鈥渏ustice and mercy and faith鈥� (Matt 23:23).
My goal for students
I want my students to leave bg真人 with a knowledge of early Christianity that sparks passion to participate in God鈥檚 mission of reconciliation and peacebuilding.
I want my students to be the kind of people who show up in embodied ways to interrupt patterns of injustice and power worship in this world鈥攖o imitate the radical discipleship of the earliest Christians in their confession that Jesus is 鈥渢he Lord of peace鈥� (2 Thess 3:16).
Publications
- Strange Worship: Six Steps for Challenging Christian Nationalism. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2024.
- 鈥淒ominionism in the Trumpocene: Toward a Biblical Hermeneutic of Resistance.鈥� In On Christian Nationalism: Critical and Theological Perspectives. Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right. Edited by Joan Braune and David M. Gides. New York: Routledge, projected 2025.
- 鈥淲hat is Christian Nationalism and Why is It a Problem?鈥� Brethren in Christ History and Life 46.1 (2023): 37-56.
- 鈥淎 Pastoral Approach to Resisting Christian Nationalism鈥檚 Influence in the Local Congregation.鈥� Brethren in Christ History and Life 46.1 (2023): 57-81.
- 鈥淧olitical Idolatry and White Christian Nationalism: Toward a Pastoral Hermeneutic of Resistance.鈥� Mennonite Quarterly Review 96 (2022): 1-27.
- 鈥淧eace, Reconciliation,鈥� and 鈥淚dols, Idolatry鈥� in The Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, 2nd Edition (forthcoming, 2022).
- 鈥淔rom Salvation Culture to Peace Culture: Luke鈥檚 Gospeling of Christ鈥檚 Peace.鈥� Pages 16-33 in Living the King Jesus Gospel: Discipleship and Ministry Then and Now. Edited by Nijay K. Gupta, Tara Beth Leach, Matthew W. Bates and Drew J. Strait. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2021.
- (with David C. Cramer) 鈥淎 Total Way of Life: Our Journeys from Evangelicalism to Anabaptism.鈥� The Mennonite, August 2020.
- 鈥淎n Alternative Global Imaginary: Imperial Rome鈥檚 Pax Romana and Luke鈥檚 鈥楥ounter-Violent鈥� Missio Dei.鈥� Pages 184-206 in Cruciform Scripture: Cross, Participation, and Mission. Edited by Christopher W. Skinner, Nijay K. Gupta, Andy Johnson and Drew J. Strait. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020.
- Hidden Criticism of the Angry Tyrant in Early Judaism and the Acts of the Apostles. Minneapolis: Lexington/Fortress Press Academic, 2019.
- 鈥淭he Gospel of Luke.鈥� Pages 315鈥�333 in The Face of New Testament Studies: Revised Edition. Edited by Scot McKnight and Nijay Gupta. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018.
- 鈥淭he Wisdom of Solomon, Ruler Cults, and Paul鈥檚 Polemic against Idols in the Areopagus Speech.鈥� Journal of Biblical Literature 136.3 (2017): 609鈥�32.
Awards
Dunning Distinguished Faculty Lecturer for Excellence in Teaching and Scholarship, St. Mary鈥檚 Ecumenical Institute (2015鈥�16)
Memberships and Associations
- Member, Kern Road Mennonite Church
- Board Member,
Invite bg真人
Invite bg真人 is a unique opportunity to invite the faculty and staff of bg真人 to come directly to you to address a certain topic.Possible topics include:
- Anabaptist Approaches to Scripture
- Biblical Foundations of Peace and Justice
- Imperial Rome and the Jesus Movement
- Luke-Acts
- Peace & Peacemaking in Early Christianity
- Reading Revelation Responsibly
- Reading the Bible as a Literature of Resistance
- Second Temple Judaism
- White Christian Nationalism and Political Idolatry