Never be wise in your own sight. Romans 12:16
Thomas Oden made this confession in his book A Change of Heart: “I did not examine my own motives… I became entrapped with the desire for upward mobility in an academic environment.”
Oden said, “My past visions of vast plans for social change had irreparably harmed many innocents, especially the unborn. The sexually permissive lifestyle, which I had not joined but failed to critique, led to a generation of fatherless children. The political policies I had promoted were intended to increase justice by political means but ended in diminishing personal responsibility and freedom.”
Oden concluded: “I had to learn to repent, to see my own arrogance and to acknowledge my limitations.” The turn in Thomas Oden’s life began in 1970 when at the age of 39 he was appointed a tenured professor at Drew University in New Jersey. There he met a Jewish scholar by the name of Will Herberg and they became close friends.
Herberg seems to have spoken to Oden with unusual directness: “My irascible, endearing Jewish friend leaned into my face and told me that I was densely ignorant of Christianity and he simply couldn’t permit me to throw my life away… If you are ever going to become a credible theologian instead of a know-it-all pundit, you had better restart your life on firmer ground. You are not a theologian except in name only, even if you are paid to be one.”
So Thomas Oden gave himself to reading the church fathers and what he discovered was that instead of trying to say something new, their great aim was to be faithful to Scripture.
In your own handling of God’s Word, how are you being faithful? Unfaithful?
