St Mary’s University Theologian Receives Accolade for New Book

Dr Peter Tyler, Reader in Theology and Spirituality at St Mary’s University, Twickenham has received the prestigious ‘Outstanding Academic Title’ award from Choice Reviews Online for his recent publication, The Bloomsbury Guide to Christian Spirituality (Bloomsbury, 2012). The book, which was edited by Dr Peter Tyler and Prof Richard Woods (Professor of Theology at Dominican University, Illinois), brings together several academics to explore a number of key questions about Christian Spirituality including how it relates to non-Christian traditions, its history, and its future. It has now been named as a top title out of more than 7,000 that were reviewed by Choice Reviews Online throughout the year. Dr Tyler said, “This was a great accolade to receive and I particularly thank all the contributors, including our own Dr Stephen Bullivant, for their magnificent contributions.” To be eligible for the Outstanding Academic Title status, the publication must satisfy a number of criteria such as overall excellence in presentation and scholarship, importance relative to other literature in the field, and value to undergraduate students. Dr Tyler was also recently praised for his contribution to a new book The Disciples' Call: Theologies of Vocation from Scripture to the Present Day (T.&T.Clark Ltd). The book traces the development of vocation from scriptural, patristic roots through Thomism and the Reformation to engage with the modern vocational crisis. The chapter within the book, The Psychology of Vocation – Nurturing the Grail Quest, explores vocation and psycho-spiritual development, has been deemed as essential reading in a blog by the Irish Dominican Vocations. In the chapter Dr Tyler defines vocation as the search for the true self, saying that it is a “new point of view, which a person finds themselves adopting to the world and their lives.”