About the Author: Adam Webber
I am Adam Brooks Webber: pastor and teacher, husband and father, computer scientist, singer and songwriter, poet and essayist, retreat leader, progressive Christian mystic, and martial artist. With MS and PhD degrees from Cornell University, I have been an award-winning university teacher and researcher. I am the author of two successful computer science textbooks: Modern Programming Languages: A Practical Introduction (2002; 2nd edition 2010) and Formal Language: A Practical Introduction (2008). (For more information about my scientific work, please visit my technical site, webber-labs.com.) But I was also a founding member of the Open Prairie United Church of Christ in Princeton, IL, where I served as organist and composer, and where I occasionally preached and taught. In 2011 I completed an MDiv degree at the Earlham School of Religion, and I am now an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, serving as the pastor of the Clare Congregational United Church of Christ in Clare, Michigan. I am also a longtime student of a traditional martial art (Karatedo Doshinkan), where I hold a title degree (Renshi) and the rank of 5th degree black belt.
So the hymns in this collection are my attempts to express aspects of a positive progressive theology. They are not meant to give a systematic statement of that theology; there are plenty of topics unaddressed here, and there’s plenty of room for a sequel. These hymns are, in the old sense, occasional pieces. They were written for particular occasions in my spiritual journey.