Living Mindfully

I've set up this website to provide a forum for my thinking about Christian spirituality and mindfulness and to provide a place to share helpful resources. My personal interest in mindfulness stems from how it can serve as a way of allowing us to be more aware of the reality of our union with Christ. An interest in being attentive is not new to our day. As I will explore on this site, this interest has marked Christian spirituality since the time of the ancient church.

The remarkable good news of the gospel is that Christians are "in Christ" - we are united with him. Through this mutual relationship of spiritual indwelling, Christ is in us, we are in Christ, and we receive the spiritual blessings God bestows on his children. Reformed theologian John Murray, in his classic statement on redemption noted, “Union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation not only in its application but also in its once-for-all accomplishment in the finished work of Christ” (Murray, 1955, 161).

I am particularly interested in cultivating a lifestyle that helps me to be increasingly aware of the reality of this mutual relationship.  Inattention is a perennial human issue. We can find authors from different eras exhorting Christians to attend to the reality that Christ is in us and suggesting ways we can train ourselves to be more aware of this. We live in a culture that seems uniquely designed to foster continual partial attention at great relational and spiritual cost. I am personally interested in how mindfulness can help me learn to be more attentive to the presence of Christ in me so that I can be more skillful in following Christ's invitation to “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4). I desire to learn to live like Paul who found, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

A bit about myself

After graduate study (MDiv from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and PhD from Northwestern University), I taught from 1981-2019 at Wheaton College, where I held the Scripture Press Chair in Christian Education. For my first thirty-five years I taught in the Christian Formation and Ministry Department. I initially taught courses on teaching the Bible and the History and Philosophy of Christian Education. Over the years my teaching load shifted to focus on Christian Formation and Spirituality. Beginning in 2016, my appointment was changed to Core Studies.

 My current research and writing focus on community-based Christian Spiritual Formation and the role of mindfulness in Christian Formation.

I have been married for five decades to my delightful and talented wife Carol. We are the parents of two daughters and been bless by the addition of two great sons-in-law to our family.

Major Publications

• Ryken, Leland, James C. Wilhoit, and Tremper Longman III. Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. IVP Academic, 1998.

• Wilhoit, James C. Spiritual Formation as If the Church Mattered: Growing in Christ through Community. Baker Academic, 2008.

• Wilhoit, James C., and Evan B. Howard. Discovering Lectio Divina: Bringing Scripture into Ordinary Life. IVP Books, 2012.

• Wilhoit, James C. Christian Education and the Search for Meaning. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1986.

 Reference: Murray, John. Redemption--Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1975.

Contact me. I invite you to reach out to me using the form below.