Kelly Kapic
14 min read ⭑
“We tend to think our limits are sinful even though they’re often the result of being a creature. We don’t have to apologize for human limitations.”
As an award-winning author, speaker and academic, Kelly Kapic strives to equip believers with grace-filled theology that’s not only insightful but practical, too. With that heart, he’s been teaching since 2001 at Covenant College, where he now holds the Honorary Chair of Theology and Culture. Kelly is also the author and editor of over 15 books, including A Little Book for New Theologians, Embodied Hope, You’re Only Human and When the Journey Hurts.
Join our conversation to discover the pastimes that fill him with joy and rest, how God turns his struggles into strengths in the classroom and the unconventional spiritual practices that ground him. Our favorite takeaway? Our limitations aren’t necessarily sins — and God delights in our creatureliness.
The following is a transcript of a live interview. Responses have been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
Food is always about more than food; it’s also about home and people and love. So how does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind your web bio?
For me, one of the best meals is my mom’s flank steak. It’s incredible. I think it reminds me of home.
My wife has become an incredible cook. We got married in 1993. In 2008, she got cancer, and in 2010, she was declared cancer free. Later that year, though, she developed serious chronic pain and fatigue, which she still deals with every day. In the early years, for about two years, she was pretty much bedridden, so I was doing all the cooking. It was terrible for me and the kids. She’s actually back to cooking, thankfully. We just had salmon recently, and it was incredible.
In terms of your question — it’s about family. It always has been. My kids are adults now, and we’re empty nesters, but we enjoy long meals together when we can. My daughter is 21, and my son is 23, married and lives in Orlando. He’s going to seminary, and his wife’s working down there. Students just this week asked a question: what’s the ideal spring break for you? I was reflecting because my wife and I lived overseas, so I said, “Spending a week in Italy with my wife, having long meals and conversation while looking out on the Mediterranean Sea with wine and olives and meats and cheeses.”
I taught a class a couple of times on Christian spirituality in which we took a group of college students to Italy, and my family got to come. Often, we’d spend a week or so together after everyone left. Those are some of our best memories together as a family. We’re a pretty tight-knit family. We quickly learned that sightseeing is interesting, but it’s not for us. Being in a different place, eating the food, getting to know people in the culture there and enjoying long, slow meals — that’s what makes my heart soar.
Bret Lama; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
What “nonspiritual” activity have you found to be quite spiritual, after all? What quirky proclivity, out-of-the-way interest or unexpected pursuit refreshes your soul?
I’m in my 50s now, and over the last 10 years of my life, taking time to walk and notice things has been a significant pastime.
I grew up with a mom who was an art teacher and became a school principal. I’ve always loved art, but am terrible at it. My two best friends here at Covenant College are a historian and an artist. (It sounds like the beginning of a joke — an artist, a historian and a theologian walk into a bar.) I remember one time being in New York visiting them while they were both teaching classes there. I was at Central Park with the artist, and he fell asleep on the grass. I was there with my little sketchbook, and afterward, when he woke up, he looked at my art. He looked at it for a while, and he had this big grin. He said, “Kelly, I love your naive art.” That was his way of saying, “You draw like an 8-year-old, and I love it. It’s so bad.”
Lately, something joyful and fun I’ve been starting to do is painting by numbers. There’s something therapeutic about it because it’s not about productivity. It’s not about being good at it. I don’t care what it looks like — and that’s so good for me.
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness; every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re all broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you confront its power?
I have many. A simple one is that after lunch with my coffee, or after any meal, I need a dessert.
But more seriously, one of my areas of study is theological anthropology. What does it mean to be human? I wrote two books: “You’re Only Human” and “You Were Never Meant to Do It All.” I wrote these because I struggle with feeling like I need to do so much. One of my kryptonites is an elevated view of self, where I think I really need to do many different things. That’s a problem.
I’m also pretty sure I have dyslexia and dysgraphia. Dyslexia is a reading thing. Dysgraphia is a writing disorder. My son has them in a very significant way. He’s given me permission to talk about it publicly, but they say that, at a certain stage, it’s pretty hard to test adults, because they’ve adopted coping mechanisms. I’m a scholar, and I read a lot, but I’m a very slow reader. Reading so much has made me attentive, but I have to do a lot of audiobooks. There’s a vulnerability in that.
Rather than pretending otherwise or leaning away from my weaknesses as a college professor, I now lean into them. For example, I can’t spell to save my life. Students sit there struggling because they’re thinking, I think this guy’s super smart, but he seems like an idiot. Which one is true? I think that’s so great for them, but especially for the students in the class who can’t spell or struggle with dyslexia. I think they feel seen.
One of my colleagues and good friends is an Old Testament professor with a Ph.D. from Princeton. Until he met me, he had not understood that spelling was not just about effort. It doesn’t matter how hard I try; honestly, I just can’t do it. It’s amazing.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?
I’m in a weird season. I’ve been teaching at Covenant College since 2001, and I’ve been writing and editing books, but recently, within a 12-month period, four different books came out, which is not a good thing because it floods things. It wasn’t intentional. Not to mention, they’re all on different topics. To provide some perspective, I signed a contract for one of them in 2014, so I’ve been thinking about these topics for a long time.
One of the four things I’ve been obsessed with is a very academic volume called “Christian Life,” which is a theology of the Christian life — not only the things we do, but who our God is. To sum it up, the first half of the book is about the Triune God, divine agency and God coming to us. There’s a hinge middle where it explores how we relate and think about the law and gospel. The second half of the book is about human agency and our response to God.
I’ll give you the shortest thesis of the book that I can: not only does God first love us (divine agency and God coming to us), but also, in the incarnate Son of God, Jesus the Messiah, God first loves himself for us. In other words, God doesn’t just first love us; God in Christ loves himself for us. He completes the circle. Thinking about love — both divine and human love centered in Christ — is so powerful and liberating. Part of the book argues that not only do we worship Jesus, but he is the lead worshipper, which is really fun to explore. There’s a lot more in there, but that’s the heart of it.
Second, I wrote a book a number of years ago called “You’re Only Human.” We also came out with a devotional called “You Were Never Meant to Do It All: A 40-Day Devotional on the Goodness of Being Human.” Through these, I encourage people to rethink their view of their limits. We tend to think our limits are sinful even though they’re often the result of being a creature. We don’t have to apologize for human limitations. The book “You’re Only Human” was meant for everybody, but a lot of people still found it to be too long. I heard from prisoners and business people, “Can we have something shorter?” That’s why I created the devotional.
Third, for the last eight to 10 years, I’ve been working with the John Templeton Foundation with a group of scholars. It’s primarily psychologists, two theologians and a philosopher. We’ve been working on suffering and doing a bunch of research, and almost all of our research has gone into academic psychological journals that no one knows about. So a psychologist, another theologian-philosopher and I wrote a book called “When the Journey Hurts.” It comes out in the next month or two. In it, we explore suffering and the best practices for walking through it. What have we learned? How do we think about? That book offers practices like lament and surrender. It’s for laity, ministers and people who are either suffering or trying to care for people who suffer.
Because of my wife’s cancer and chronic pain, I wrote a book with her called “Embodied Hope,” which is also about suffering. I’ve learned so much from her. For instance, she often talks about pain, suffering and trauma in terms of geography. It’s not just time that makes things better; place makes a difference, too. At first, you have to be on that island a lot. Then, with time and practice, you move off the island, but it still exists. A smell, a sight or a word can take you back, and you can’t control it. I think there’s a reason why the laments are often communal. So many Americans say, “It seems inauthentic for me to lament when I don’t have anything to lament.” But we’re not just lamenting for ourselves — we’re lamenting with others, and it’s something we have to learn to do. It’s the same thing with prayer; we do it to develop these muscles when we need them.
The fourth book is on a guy named John Owen, a 17th-century figure. A younger scholar and I wrote it together: “Owen Among the Theologians.” We examine Owen’s writings alongside those of other theologians throughout history by creating fresh conversations between them. For example, we include a famous theologian like Augustine, as well as less famous theologians like Sister Macrina in the early church or Lemuel Hayes. Hayes was one of the very first African American ordained ministers in America.
We used these figures to try to introduce people to different significant thinkers who emphasized elements of theology that are important for our lives but perhaps have been neglected. For instance, Sister Macrina influenced Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa because she reflected on the resurrection quite a bit. We look at her understanding of death and John Owen’s understanding of death, comparing the similarities and differences. It’s not about judging which view is better or worse. Rather, they lived about a millennium or two apart. Didymus the Blind, who was an early church father, is another example. In his work on the Holy Spirit, he really stressed that the Holy Spirit is divine. John Owen, who draws heavily on Didymus, emphasizes that the Holy Spirit is personal. The two are affirming both things, but they provide different emphases. Even Jonathan Edwards’ Perseverance of the Saints, the idea that God’s going to keep us — they both hold to that, but they get there in different ways, which is kind of surprising.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Whether we’re cashiers or CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need God’s love flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
God’s love is like a stream, but we tend to make it like a sink that we plug up so we can “capture it.” If I’m being honest, the times when I feel God is doing something are often when I’m teaching in the classroom or speaking publicly, and I can tell the light bulbs are coming on. I learn by researching, writing and speaking, but it’s when I’m speaking that things click for me. It feels like a God thing.
Yesterday, I was teaching a class on faith and suffering, and we were having some hard conversations. One of the students asked about Jesus’ teaching on turning the other cheek and how we walk that out without allowing ourselves to be abused. I hadn’t thought about it this way until answering her. I thought of Fannie Lou Hamer in the late 1960s. She was an African-American woman trying to testify about the oppression and the issues of the day, and political figures were trying to shut her down and block her out. Remarkably, she kept calm, but she let them know that there was a judgment coming. We started talking about this idea because Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf at Yale says the only people who would come up with the idea that there is no divine judgment are upper-middle-class white people living in suburbia. People like me, right? It sounds great on paper, but it’s because they haven’t understood injustice. All of a sudden, you realize that if someone hits you on the cheek, you can look back at them and say, “Do it again if you need to. Take my cloak if you need to. But just so you know, none of this is ignored by God, and he’s going to make it right.” There are two sides. One side is compassionate, and you can win over the other person. The other side is choosing not to take vengeance because you know God is not indifferent to the abuse you suffer. Explaining this during class was a lightbulb moment for me, and I felt God invigorating my work.
Another example of this is when, some time ago, I was talking about Jesus’ idea of plucking out your eye and cutting off your arm. I’ve talked about it before — Jesus is serious. When we read that passage, we don’t have permission to immediately say, “Jesus didn’t mean it.” We think Jesus is so extreme, but it’s all about who you’re thinking about. The male gaze is a real issue for women. And if you read Jesus talking in terms of the male gaze, rather than him sounding “puritanical and just,” as if he hated sex, it’s actually powerful and liberating. He’s saying, “No, the male gaze, where you’re objectified, is a real problem.” He’s speaking on behalf of women. In other words, we tend to make it about the men, which in itself is the problem.
All that to say, it’s not until the words come out and I can feel it and see ideas clicking in people’s heads that I realize God is doing something. But it needs to be that stream. It’s not the sink that’s stuck. It’s the water moving through. It’s the fresh stream that brings God’s love coming through, and as his love is going through, I start to feel it myself. I find it hard to believe God loves me, but when I am sharing it with others, it’s more believable.
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you in this season?
Mornings are pretty sacred. Sitting in my chair or, when it’s cold, going outside and enjoying a fire — I love that. Being in Scripture, the Psalms in particular, is important to me because whether or not I’m able to pray, they’re praying, and I’m praying through them. In some ways, that’s a fairly traditional answer, but if I’m not having that morning time, I am not a nice person.
Another important spiritual practice that’s a little uncomfortable to talk about is looking strangers in the eye and praying for them in my heart. It can be at grocery stores or airports. Even when I go into the restroom, 50-60% of the time, there’s a worker in there, and I now try to catch their eye, say, “Thank you,” and pray for them in my heart. That’s been really helpful for me. Sometimes they think it’s weird, but often, it stops them, and it becomes a very meaningful moment for both of us. That’s a small but profound spiritual discipline for me.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed reality and changed your heart?
The most significant book for me is by John Owen, the 17th-century figure who wrote “Communion with the Triune God.” It’s the idea that we commune with the Father, the Son and the Spirit as one God, but we always commune with that one God through the Persons. It’s a profound, significant but also deeply pastoral volume that shapes my imagination in all kinds of ways.
The ancient church writings, like Saint Augustine’s “Confessions,” have been really important in fighting the idea that theology and practice are separated. Somehow, good theology has to be practical, and our practices have to be theological.
There’s also a wonderful book by Saint Athanasius, an early church father, called “On the Incarnation.” I’m a Protestant theologian who was born Catholic but stopped going to church in elementary school. I became an active follower in my middle school years of people who drank, did drugs and all that stuff. Then in high school, I became a follower of Jesus through a fundamentalist-leaning Baptist church. Eventually, I became Reformed Presbyterian, and that’s the tradition I’m in now. Having said all of that, there’s rightly a strong emphasis on the cross, especially in the Protestant traditions. My strong view has been that, as we have rightly emphasized the cross, we have also lost sight of the significance that the eternal Son of God became human. What does incarnation mean? And why is that so important? If you read my work, whether it’s on suffering or worship, it’s really about what it means to be human. Athanasius’ volume is so beautiful because it’s a strong, unapologetic call to the full humanity and significance of Jesus.
In fact, along the same lines, there’s another volume that’s shorter by Tertullian called “De carne Christi (On the Flesh of Christ)” that talks about Mary’s afterbirth and how important that was. You may think, That sounds irreverent, but his whole point is that what you think is gross, God delights in. He’s got a problem with sin. He doesn’t have a problem with creatureliness. Those volumes are very significant to me.
Certain things can be godsends, helping us survive, even thrive, in our fast-paced world. Does technology ever help you this way? Has an app ever boosted your spiritual growth? If so, how?
Technology is a massive challenge that we need to think through. Having said that, I love the Bible app. Often in the mornings when I’m in my chair by the fire, a significant portion of it will be me reading as I’m listening.
As I mentioned, I read a lot, but because of my dyslexia, I supplement. I do a lot of audio, and I love Audible. Audible has been amazing to my journey — spiritually, theologically and otherwise. Because I write a lot and work with a lot of publishers, one of my personal agendas is to get them to create more audio versions of books. It’s a huge audience they don’t know about, but because I work in these two audiences, I’m very aware. I have blind students. For me, rather than apologize, I want to lean into that. I want to figure out how to get more and more available. Physically reading is getting harder for people for all kinds of reasons. Audible’s been great.
Another thing that’s helpful is a program called Scrivener, which is designed for writers. It allows some focus and some creativity.
QUESTION #8: dream
God’s continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
It’s been about a year or two, and as these projects are now coming out, I finally have some freedom again. I never thought I’d do this, but I’m starting to think about writing a book for non-Christians to explain what Christianity is and, in a different way, to defamiliarize it. I’ve seen some of the attempts to do it, but it ends up still not bridging it all or making sense of things. I know a lot of my audience is still going to be Christian, but I’d like to write it in such a way that a Christian could read and give it to their non-Christian friends. I actually think the Christians themselves can better understand their faith by having it defamiliarized.
Maybe you, like Kelly, work in a field that demands deep study, focuse or attention to detail. If so, finding small, unimportant things that bring you joy is essential — which is why Kelly picks up his paintbrush whenever he can. Your practice doesn’t have to be painting by numbers. You could create photo collages, write poems in your journal, learn origami, make candles or do puzzles with a loved one. Whatever it is, make sure it allows you to access the playful side of your creativity — with zero pressure to be productive or perform perfectly.
Kelly M. Kapic is an award-winning author, active speaker and collaborator and holds the Honorary Chair of Theology and Culture at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, where he has taught since 2001. He has written and edited over 15 books, including the award-winning titles You’re Only Human and Embodied Hope, as well as A Little Book for New Theologians and two volumes with the economist Brian Fikkert: Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty Isn’t the American Dream and A Field Guide to Becoming Whole: Principles for Poverty Alleviation Ministries. Kelly and his wife, Tabitha, have two adult children, Jonathan and Margot.