Dr. Han-Luen Kantzer Komline

Marvin and Jerene DeWitt Professor of Theology and Church History

BA Wheaton College
MDiv Princeton Theological Seminary
PhD University of Notre Dame
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“I see my vocation at Western Theological Seminary as Elizabethan. The biblical character Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist. She raised up a herald of the kingdom of heaven. My task is to nurture and raise up women and men who will lead the church in mission by doing what John the Baptist did, joyfully welcoming and proclaiming the coming of Christ.”
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Dr. Han-Luen Kantzer Komline

Dr. Han-Luen Kantzer Komline

About Dr. Han-Luen Kantzer Komline

Dr. Han-luen Kantzer Komline joined the faculty at Western Theological Seminary in 2014.  She is the author of Augustine on the Will: A Theological Account (Oxford University Press, 2020; paperback edition, October 2023), which received the Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise in 2020.  Her research focuses on early Christian theology.  Many of her publications concern topics in Augustine or his relationship to other thinkers, ranging from Ambrose and Cyprian to Karl Barth and Marilynne Robinson.  She has also published on more recent figures such as John Calvin, Jürgen Moltmann, and Erich Przywara.  Kantzer Komline’s research has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright Commission (2008-2009), the Louisville Institute (2015-2017), the Augustinian Institute at Villanova (2020), and the Humboldt Foundation (2022-2023).  Her current book project, The Idea of the New in Early Christian Thought, analyzes how Christians of late antiquity conceptualized and defended the innovative character of the Christian faith.

Dr. Kantzer Komline serves as a co-editor of the International Journal of Systematic Theology, as Theologian in Residence at Pillar Church, and as an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church in America.

Speaking Engagements

  • February 18, 2024: Preaching, Pillar Church, Holland, MI
  • February 28, 2024:  “Origen and Tertullian on the Virtues of the New”— Doctoral Research Seminar, Wycliffe College, Toronto
  • April 18, 2024: “Early Christian Theology and Innovation,” Weyerhaeuser Center Speaker Series, Whitworth University
  • August 2024: “Augustine and Innovation: Reconsidering His Rhetoric of ‘Newness’ in the Pelagian Controversy,” Oxford Patristics Conference, Oxford University

Areas of Expertise 

Early Christian Theology, Historical Theology, Systematic Theology, Augustine’s Theology, Christology, Theological Anthropology

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Publications

Books

Augustine on the Will

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Turning Points, 4th Edition

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