Richard Foster (theologian)

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Richard Foster

Richard J. Foster is a Christian theologian and author in the Quaker tradition. His writings speak to a broad Christian audience. He has been a professor at Friends University and pastor of Evangelical Friends churches. Foster resides in Denver, Colorado.

Foster is best known for his 1978 book Celebration of Discipline (ISBN 0-06-062839-1), which examines the inward disciplines of prayer, fasting, and meditation in the Christian life, the outward disciplines of simplicity, submission, and service, and the corporate disciplines of confession, worship, and celebration. It has sold over one million copies. It was named by Christianity Today as one of the top ten books of the twentieth century.

He also wrote Freedom of Simplicity (1981, ISBN 0-06-104385-0) which further explores the discipline of simple, intentional living, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home (1992, ISBN 0-06-062846-4), which explores 21 different types of Christian prayer, edited Devotional Classics (1993, ISBN 0-06-066966-7), a devotional guide featuring Christian wisdom through the ages, and wrote Streams of Living Water (2001, ISBN 0-06-062822-7), which examines the place of the different spiritual traditions - Contemplative: The Prayer-Filled Life; Holiness: The Virtuous Life ; Charismatic: The Spirit-Empowered Life; Social Justice: The Compassionate Life; Evangelical: The Word-Centered Life; and Incarnational: The Sacramental Life - in Christianity.

Foster (along with several others) also authored the devotional Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible. Two editions of this NRSV-based study Bible exist, one with the apocryphal/deuterocanonical texts and one without.

In 1988 Foster founded Renovaré, a Christian renewal para-Church organization.

As Foster encourages the utilization of classical Christian wisdom, he functions within the realm of paleo-orthodoxy.