There is a perception out there that the academy is a community committed to neutrality, tolerance, and intellectual freedom. Professors are free to have whatever beliefs they find compelling and supported by the evidence. Right? While there are still faculty (and institutions) that share this approach, there are many who do not. And Oden discovered this reality. After changing intellectual directions his colleagues did not respond with tolerance. They did not give him his intellectual freedom. They did not allow him to hold his own convictions. On the contrary, he was vilified, marginalized, and viewed as an intellectual pariah.

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).

Ouch.

The words struck a nerve and Oden began a journey that eventually resulted in a 180 degree turn away from liberalism and towards historic, traditional Christianity. Oden’s story provides a rare glimpse into the world of modern liberal scholarship from the perspective of someone who used to believe all the standard critical views but then changed his mind. Thus, there are a number of lessons we can learn from his journey:

Lesson 1: Contemporary scholarly methods do not always lead one to truth.

The Goliath of the modern academy can be an intimidating foe. People naturally assume that the consensus of modern scholarship must be right. But, Oden discovered that much of what he was taught was flat out wrong. He states, “I had put too much uncritical trust in contemporary methods of historical study and behavioral engineering. . . the change in perception was momentous for me.” (139).

Lesson 2: Many of the questions raised by modern scholars have been addressed (long) before in the history of Christianity.

When critical scholars uncover what they regard as incongruities or problems with the Bible (or Christianity), they are often presented as new discoveries that no one has heretofore noticed or addressed. But, as Oden began to read early Christian writers, particular in the first few centuries of the faith, he realized (to his surprise) that they were quite aware of these challenges and difficulties and were already addressing them head on. He writes, “Every question I previously thought of as new and unprecedented, I found had already been much investigated” (138).

Lesson 3: The quest for originality and newness can be a dangerous one.

One of the standard values of many modern scholars is that new is better than old. New approaches, new ideas, new ways of thinking are highly prized. Old ways are archaic, out of date, and primitive. Oden confesses that he used to think this way, “I had been enamored with novelty. Candidly, I had been in love with heresy” (140). But, then he came to realize that theology can be done more reliably and faithfully by uncovering the historic Christian teachings on a particular subject, rather than trying to come up with something utterly new. Oden describes his new direction, “I set about trying scrupulously to abstain from creating any new doctrine. It was the best decision I made as a theologian…I realized that I could be a theologian simply by reflecting accurately out of the great minds of Christian teaching” (144).

Lesson 4: Scholarly views can have serious social consequences.

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