If you are ever going to become a credible theologian instead of a know-it-all pundit, you had best restart your life on firmer ground …

As I read this words from Dr. Michael Kruger’s Canon Fodder blog (quickly becoming one of my favorites), it reminded me of a passage in a Kevin DeYoung book that I have reflected on previously. (Rev. DeYoung is pretty much nose-to-nose with Ed Welch as my favorite contemporary author these days.)

First. Dr. Kruger:

“There are countless stories of evangelicals who head off to Ph.D. programs in hopes of becoming a professor and having a positive influence in the secular university environment. This is particularly the case in the fields of biblical studies or philosophical theology. And such aspirations are certainly commendable.

Unfortunately, the outcome of such endeavors is not always as expected. While these evangelicals intend to influence the academy, very often the academy ends up influencing them. As a result, many evangelicals end up abandoning the very commitments that led them towards advanced study in the first place.

But even though academic study has led some evangelicals to abandon their commitments, occasionally the opposite happens. Sometimes secular scholars abandon their commitment to liberal thinking and actually become evangelicals. And when this happens, their eyes are opened up to a number of truths that they had never noticed before (or at least refused to notice).

Such is the story of Thomas Oden. Oden received his Ph.D from Yale under Richard Niebuhr and was enamored with the theology of Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Bultmann. He interacted with some of the greatest minds of his generation such as Gadamer, Pannenberg, and Karl Barth. He was a classic liberal scholar.

But, then Oden had a change of heart. He tells the story in his book, A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir (IVP, 2014). One day a Jewish friend looked him in the eye and reminded him of something very few would dare to say: that he would stand under divine judgment on the last day. Then his friend said:

“If you are ever going to become a credible theologian instead of a know-it-all pundit, you had best restart your life on firmer ground” (137).”

(Makes you want to click over and read the entire post, doesn’t it? And then buy the book too?! Me too.)

And now, the excerpts I was thinking of from Rev. DeYoung:

“Uncertainty is not the same as humility.” Kevin DeYoung

Isn’t it strange, C.S. Lewis wondered, that the Law would be the Psalmist’s delight (Ps. 1:2)? Respect or reverence we might understand, but delight? Who delights in law? And why? Lewis explains, ‘Their delight in the Law, is a delight in having touched firmness; like the pedestrian’s delight in feeling the hard road beneath his feet after a false short cut has long entangled him in muddy fields.” C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

‘But if any one fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based, not upon mere feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but upon an account of facts. In other words it was based upon doctrine.’ J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism

‘It is the dogma that is the drama—not beautiful phrases, nor comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations to loving—kindness and uplift, nor the promise of something nice after death—but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world, lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death. Show that to the heathen, and they may not believe it; but at least they may realize that here is something that man might be glad to believe.’ Dorothy Sayers

(Quoted in Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck’s book, Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be)

Yes, much of eternal import to mull on.

I am praying for all of us–that we would soak continunally in the Word and be drawn to the Author of the dogma—that He may help us to delight in the firmness that is Him. To trust Him. Love Him. And then get out there and keep loving people. Neighbor and enemy. Neighbors who are currently treating us like enemies. No matter what.

Yours in the battle of life and faith—
Tara B.