| Birth Date: | 20 August 1948 |
| Birth Place: | Napoleon, Ohio |
| Education: | Concordia University Chicago University of Idaho Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary University of Notre Dame |
| Occupation: | Christian theologian Author Musician Preacher Educator |
Marva J. Dawn (August 20, 1948April 18, 2021)[1] was an American Christian theologian, author, musician, preacher, and educator. She was associated with the parachurch organization Christians Equipped for Ministry in Vancouver, Washington where she taught Christians around the globe. She also served as a Teaching Fellow in Spiritual Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. Dawn was generally perceived as a Lutheran evangelical. She often wrote in a paleo-orthodox style, stressing the importance of Christian tradition and the wisdom of the Church through the centuries.
Born in Napoleon, Ohio as Marva Gersmehl, she later took the surname Dawn as a pseudonym. She was raised a Lutheran.
After completing a B.A. (1970) from Concordia Teachers College, she completed a M.A. (1972) in English from the University of Idaho, an M.Div. (1978) in New Testament from Western Evangelical Seminary, and a Th.M. (1983) in Old Testament from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. She then completed an M.A. (1986) and Ph.D. (1992) in Christian Ethics and the Scriptures from the University of Notre Dame.[2] She has taught for clergy and worship conferences and at seminaries in North America and internationally.[3]
She was married to Myron Sandberg, an elementary school teacher, in 1989.
She struggled with illnesses such as cancer, chronic pain, blindness in one eye, a kidney transplant, and foot problems.
She died in Vancouver, Washington on April 18, 2021.
Dawn wrote numerous books on worship, spirituality, and Christian ethics. Her work emphasized the importance of liturgy, Sabbath-keeping, and spiritual formation in the Christian life.
Her 1995 book, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for the Turn-of-the-Century Culture, which urged a second look at so-called "contemporary Christian worship", caused a stir in evangelical circles, being the first scholarly work from within the evangelical community to seriously question "seeker sensitive" style worship. Dawn claimed that much contemporary worship, which seeks primarily to evangelize through entertainment, is not really Christian worship at all. Rather than focus on bringing people into the church through worship, Dawn argued that worship should instead focus upon the glory and grace of the triune God, not ignoring the artistic treasures and traditions of the Church through the ages. The book remains her most widely read and most talked about work. Dawn continued this exploration in her 1999 book, A Royal "Waste" of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World.
Another one of Dawn's works, "Is It a Lost Cause? Having the Heart of God for the Church's Children" published in 1997 is about the challenges of passing on the Christian faith to the next generation and how the church can better engage children and young people in its life and mission. In "Is It a Lost Cause?", Marva Dawn argues that the church needs to do a better job of recognizing and valuing children as full members of the community of faith. She asserts that children are not the "church of the future" but rather the "church of today" and that they have important contributions to make to the life of the church.
In her more recent work, Dawn has drawn on Albert Borgmann's notion of the device paradigm to develop a critique of the church in its capitulation to commodification where worship, for example, becomes a device to attract and please.