A Change of Heart

How did a celebrated theological liberal of the mid-twentieth century 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 liberal 1950s Student Christian Movement. Ten years before America's entry into the Vietnam war, he admired Ho Chi Minh as an agrarian patriot. For Oden, every turn was a left turn. At Yale he earned his PhD under H. Richard Niebuhr. Later during his academic year in Heidelberg he met with some of the most formidable minds of the era -- enjoying conversations with Gadamer, Bultmann and Pannenberg, as well as a lengthy discussion with Karl Barth at a makeshift office in Barth's hospital room. Being in Europe allowed Oden to attend Vatican II as an observer and to get his first taste of ancient Christianity. He traveled with his family in a VW microbus through Turkey, Syria and Israel. But slowly he stopped making left turns. His enthusiasm for pacifism, ecumenism, and the interface between theology and psychotherapy were all ambushed by varied shapes of reality. It was a challenge from a Jewish scholar, his friend and mentor Will Herberg, that precipitated his most dramatic turn -- back 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. Thomas Oden's fascinating memoir walks us through not just his personal history but some of the most memorable chapters in twentieth-century theology. - Jacket flap.