Reverend Peter A. Pettit, Ph.D. is a Lutheran minister (ELCA) and teaching pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa. He is a former Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute where he was a co-director of the Institute’s Theology Conference since its inception in 1984 and co-director of the New Paths: Christians Engaging Israel project, which produced the Images of Israel Video Lecture Series.
He has held research fellowships at the Hebrew University, American Jewish University, the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, and Hebrew College. He was also a Religion Studies faculty member at Muhlenberg College for 20 years and led its Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding.
His research and teaching focus on the hermeneutics of self-understanding in the Jewish and Christian communities. This research informs his congregational leadership in Bible study, theology and ethics, community engagement, and a weekly podcast commentary on the Sunday scripture readings, as well as work in regional and national arenas of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and more widely. He has authored several curriculum resources for interfaith encounter as well as numerous articles, book chapters, dictionary and encyclopedia entries, and book reviews.
