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Title: A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir By: Thomas C. Oden Format: Paperback Number of Pages: 450 Vendor: IVP Academic | Publication Date: 2014 Weight: 1 pound 8 ounces ISBN: 0830840354 ISBN-13: 9780830840359 Stock No: WW840350 |
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Best Theological Memoir from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore
How did one of the twentieth century's most celebrated liberals have such a dramatic change of heart?
After growing up in the heart of rural Methodism in Oklahoma, Thomas Oden found Marx, Nietzsche and Freud storming into his imagination. He joined the post-World War II pacifist movement and became enamored with every aspect of the 1950s' ecumenical Student Christian Movement. Ten years before America's entry into the Vietnam war he admired Ho Chi Min as an agrarian patriot. For Oden, every turn was a left turn.
At Yale he earned his PhD under H. Richard Niebuhr and later met with some of the most formidable minds of the eraenjoying conversations with Gadamer, Bultmann and Pannenberg as well as a lengthy discussion with Karl Barth at a makeshift office in his hospital room. While traveling with his family through Turkey, Syria and Israel, he attended Vatican II as an observer and got his first taste of ancient Christianity. And slowly, he stopped making left turns.
Oden's enthusiasms for pacifism, ecumenism and the interface between theology and psychotherapy were ambushed by varied shapes of reality. Yet it was a challenge from a Jewish scholar, his friend and mentor Will Herberg, that precipitated his most dramatic turnback to the great minds of ancient Christianity. Later a meeting with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Benedict XVI) planted the seeds for what became Oden's highly influential Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. This fascinating memoir walks us through not only his personal history but some of the most memorable chapters in twentieth-century theology.
Thomas C. Oden (19312016) was the general editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and the Ancient Christian Doctrine series as well as the author of Classic Christianity, a revision of his three-volume systematic theology. His books also include The African Memory of Mark, Early Libyan Christianity, and How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind. He wasthe director of the Center for Early African Christianity at Eastern University in Pennsylvania and he also served as the Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology at the Graduate School and The Theological School of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.
"Thomas C. Oden is a fascinating figure in the history of 20th Century theology, and his new autobiography, A Change of Heart, is a fascinating read. Known for The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and Agenda for Theology, Oden writes a riveting tale about his early commitment to liberal theology and socialism, and then a 180-degree turn as he embraced classic Christianity and conservative thought in the early 1970s. Truly a remarkable story, Oden's work is well worth the time."
-- Mark Hansard, Emerging Scholars Blog, January 14, 2016"This work of Odens is a deeply reflective personal and theological memoir. It is simply a story of a life lived; it is profound because of the type of person who lived it."
-- Book Reviews, Spring 2017"Oden's Memoir should be a preferred read for anyone interested in twentieth- and twenty-first-century historical and systematic theology, especially as such work has played out in the halls of modernity, evangelicalism, and ecumenical trends, especially in the context of the unfolding exchanges between Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Evangelical Protestantism."
-- Woodrow W. Whidden, Andrews University Seminary Studies, Autumn 2016"The ecumenical value of Thomas Oden's life work, especially among Protestants, liberal and conservative, would be hard to overestimate. He is not simply an important figure in the subordination of school and denominational theologies to a catholic vision, but because of his courage in separating himself from error, combined with his titanic labors in support of orthodox Christianity, he is the pivotal figure at a critical theological juncture, an icon of the pilgrim on a pilgrimage that many will and must take, and for which he will be thanked by generations of those who will be served and perhaps even saved by his efforts. John Wesley, his spiritual progenitor, called himself a 'brand plucked from the burning.' So is Thomas Oden, and he has given us here not only and account of the wood hardened by fire, but of the fire itself, which will destroy the souls who commit themselves to it if they are not rescued by a Compassionate Jew."
-- S. M. Hutchens, Touchstone, May/June 2016"This book is for anyone seeking inspiration or encouragement in the face of the challenges of modernity, to press on in faithfulness to the gospel which was once for all handed down to the saints."
-- Andrew Dragos, Seedbed Blog, July 26, 2015"Over the last 60 years or so, few United Methodist theologians have been as influential as Thomas C. Oden. His pioneering work in pastor theology, pastoral care and counseling, patristic exegesis, Wesley studies, and systematic theology have a profound influence on at least two generations of scholars and clergy. . . . Oden's latest work, A Change of Heart, is a personal and theological memoir. In keeping with that genre, the goal of this work is simply to tell the story of a life lived. . . . People from across theological and political spectrums will find in its pages a loving and generous guide eager to take them on a journey that is as much about repentance as it is conviction or certitude. . . . [W]hile I have read many of Oden's works over the years, we have never personally met one another. After reading this latest work, there is a real sense in which I feel like we have met. Even better, I feel like I have made a new friend. And isn't that what a good memoir should do?"
-- Jason Vickers, Good News Magazine, April 29, 2015What would you like to know about this product? Please enter your name, your email and your question regarding the product in the fields below, and we'll answer you in the next 24-48 hours.
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