A Change of Heart: Book Review
Many have observed a burgeoning interest in ancient Christianity in the last decade or two. Specifically, this interest has focused on the early church period. In addition to conferences, symposia, and the inclusion of Patristic studies emphases within institutional curricula, InterVarsity Press has published numerous ancient commentaries on Scripture and biblical doctrine. Yet apart from the conversion of one Methodist theologian, much of this would have likely been a fad instead of a trend.
The book jacket of A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir (2014) asks: “How did a celebrated theological liberal of the mid-twentieth century have such a dramatic change of heart?” Over the next 300+ pages, Thomas Oden (b. 1931) narrates his eight-decade journey away from and back toward God. Combining personal, penitential reflections, and insightful argument, Oden shares his discovery of classical, consensual, Christian thought.
Oden’s Story
Oden spent most of his 53-year career as a professor of theology and ethics at the Theological School of Drew University. However, his story begins not in Madison, New Jersey, but rural Oklahoma.
As a child of the Dust Bowl and Depression, Oden was well-positioned to think about Christianity’s interface with a complex world. His father was an attorney; his mother a music teacher. Thus, his family valued serving others and stewarding one’s intellectual gifts. That he would be educated at distinguished institutions like the University of Oklahoma, Southern Methodist University, and Yale is hardly a surprise.
Oden’s years as a doctoral student at Yale placed him alongside theological luminaries such as Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, and Richard Niebuhr (his chief advisor). By this time in the 1950s, Oden was fascinated with Kierkegaard, psychotherapy, Bultmann, and Barth. His abandonment of pacifism during this decade also revealed that he was a theologian-in-development, though he had a long journey ahead.
He taught at the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Texas (1958-1960), Phillips Graduate Seminary in Oklahoma (1961-1969), and Drew University for the duration of his career. Oden was also passionate toward the local church.[1] He served several parishes throughout his life, though he was never solely a pastor by vocation for any significant period of time.
Oden’s arrival at Drew was significant because of a colleague named Will Herberg. Herberg’s familiarity with both the Jewish and Christian traditions proved to be the final, influence which drove Oden “to the sources.” Later he would write, “Herberg became a Jew by listening to a Christian [Richard Niebuhr]; I began a Christian by listening to a Jew.”[2] Earlier Oden focused on revising Christianity to accommodate modern psychological thought. Yet he confesses, “Only when I learned to trust the classic Christian consensus on care of souls, as seen in Cyprian, Augustine and Gregory, did I see the way ahead.”[3]
1968 was a peak year of reversal in which the ideologies of modernity were found to be wanting.[4] By then, Oden had tasted modernity’s bitter disappointments, and found that ancient Christianity provided intellectual and spiritual substance unparalleled in modern expressions of faith. Thus, the next several decades were spent exploring Wesleyanism, paleo-orthodoxy, and the early African roots of Christianity.[5]
Some Important Lessons
Philosophers often debate the move from “what is” to “what ought to be” in moral reasoning. However, Christian readers of biography recognize that Scripture admonishes us to learn from both good and bad examples (cf. 1 Cor. 10:6; Heb. 12:1), wherever we encounter them. Oden’s biography reveals three prominent themes or lessons:
(1) God’s Mercy and Forgiveness Are Real, and So Are Sin’s Consequences
The most succinct instance of Oden’s candor is his confession of having lived a “fragmented life for the first forty years.”[6] He explains,
My life story has had two phases: going away from home as far as I could go, not knowing what I might find in an odyssey of preparation, and then at last inhabiting anew my own original home of classic Christian wisdom. . . . I had been enamored with novelty. Candidly, I had been in love with heresy.[7]
Conversion requires repentance, of course. And we should acknowledge that previously held, faulty beliefs were sinful since ignorance is no excuse. But Oden recognized that God’s forgiveness for heterodox beliefs didn’t negate real damage done to students. Speaking of his earlier career, Oden writes, “The twelve books I wrote in the 1960s were not all wrong, but flawed by the fervent desire to accommodate to modern worldviews. By 1970 I could see the tremendous harm caused by some of the follies I had promoted.”[8] He explains,
I caused unintended harm. . . . One reason for writing A Change of Heart is in part to alert people to question the realism of those collectivist and unexamined illusions. . . . The wrongs I failed to recognize in my youth have had ripple effects that I will never completely know, but on the last day I will be accountable for them.[9]
Even in expressing contrition, Oden also acknowledges God’s willingness to use broken vessels: “I do not believe I would have been prepared to serve as a critic of modernity without having first entered fully and honestly into its flawed premises.”[10] So when we accept responsibility for the bad fruit of earlier errors, we must also embrace God’s call to bear good fruit.
(2) We Should Learn Carefully from the Unique People Life Connects Us With
The number of intellectual giants that Oden personally encountered in his career is remarkable. I did chuckle in reading this passage:
I had written Karl Barth indicating that I would call when I came through Basel on my way to the Second Vatican Council in Rome, and he had encouraged me to stop by, knowing that I was preparing a full-length book on his ethics.[11]
Oden’s life brought him face-to-face with Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976), Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), and Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928-2014). He knew Pope John Paul II. Even more profitable was his personal relationship with Joseph Ratzinger, which began 17 years before Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.
Surprisingly, the Pope (now Pope Emeritus) had an instrumental role in the advent of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Oden writes,
I marveled that the dream of a patristic commentary on Scripture had been first envisioned in conversation with the person who was now the new pope. Ratzinger the theologian had been the one best prepared to understand what I was an evangelical Protestant had been doing in patristic exegesis.[12]
Most of us won’t rub shoulders with figures as prominent as Oden, but we should learn cautiously from those whom we do meet, whether their lessons be positive or negative.[13]
(3) Reform Is Slow in Creed and Deed
Christians leave churches for many reasons, though seldom are they doctrinal. Oden is an example to consider when it comes to staying or retreating from a church or denomination in need of reform.
Many would acknowledge that contemporary Methodism is a far cry from the theological vision of John and Charles Wesley. Oden realized this through filling pulpits, teaching students, and observing the increasing rift between the clergy and laity in the United Methodist Church. Books such as Requiem (1995) and Turning Around the Mainline (2006) expressed such sentiments. He writes,
I knew that patient congregations were seething with frustration over what they were hearing from their sacred pulpits. They had been socialized to be compliant, to not raise embarrassing questions, to not enter into disputes, especially regarding their own local pastors.[14]
Oden not only narrated such problems, but sought to reform from within his denomination. This was no easy task for Oden, who confessed, “I decided to stay in the church that had baptized me as long as its doctrinal confession and constitutional guarantees remained intact. If those doctrinal standards did not remain intact, I would have to ask my conscience whether there was any reason to remain.”[15]
Reflection
Last November at ETS, I thanked an author whose book was important to my master’s thesis. After receiving my thanks he sighed and remarked, “You know, I lost a lot of friends over that book. . . . But I think I’ve gained some new ones as well.” That reminded me of the high price some believers pay personally and professionally for courage.
Oden’s story is a courageous journey to follow one’s convictions, even if they require change. He narrates this gradual change by walking through each decade of his life (a helpful approach). It is a journey from preoccupation with the novel to a preoccupation with the superiority of classical consensus. He summarizes:
Every generation . . . has access to the vast store of practical wisdom bequeathed by Christian antiquity. Each generation is called freely to enter the vault and simply listen. Some have the duty to protect that vault and transmit its wisdom to future ages with fresh insights into its unchanging power. Many in my generation were refusing to enter the vault and some have tried to burn it down, but it survived the fires of modernity as it had survived so many times before.[16]
I speak for many when I say that Oden (and this biography particularly) has challenged me to enter that vault and listen.
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Key Works
Classic Christianity (or, the three-volume Systematic Theology)
After Modernity…What?
The Transforming Power of Grace
John Wesley’s Teachings (4 Volume Set)
How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind
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[1] Oden’s interests in the church coalesced with his interest in the global ecumenical movement. He participated in numerous meetings both nationally and internationally (including Vatican II). Only later did he realize that his interest in the consensus of classical Christianity was more “ecumenical” than any politically-savvy modern ecumenism.
[2] A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 134.
[3] Ibid., 150.
[4] Ibid., 162-163.
[5] Presently, at nearly 90 years of age, Oden serves as the Director of the Center for Early African Christianity.
[6] Ibid, 334.
[7] Ibid., 140.
[8] Ibid., 145.
[9] Ibid., 56.
[10] Ibid., 141.
[11] Ibid., 94
[12] Ibid., 296.
[13] One very interesting or negative lesson is when Oden describes his early sympathies with the political and economic radicalism of the Marxist community organizer Saul Alinsky. Yet then he compares this with the life narrative of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (86). Oden’s life in politically left, Methodist activism mirrored Clinton’s own intellectual journey in similar circles, having been influenced by similar sources.
[14] Ibid., 262.
[15] Ibid., 263. In reading this, I was reminded of Oliver O’Donovan’s comments elsewhere about ecclesial separation. He notes that such separation has a “self-purifying character” that often is unwilling to “wait for God to purify his own church in his own time.” There are ways in which serious disagreements can be addressed that “renew communion by proven willingness and determination to resolve them.”
See Church in Crisis: The Gay Controversy and the Anglican Communion (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2005), 32-33.
[16] A Change of Heart, 151.
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