A Change of Heart

Short Review: I really liked this, although it occasionally was a bit repetitive and some of the structure could have make things clearer with better formatting (but that might have been the Kindle edition.)

Oden was a classic liberal theologian coming into his own in the 1950s and 60s. But when he was about 40 years old he started to realize that his marxist rhetoric and liberal theology was missing the truth. Over about a 10 year period he confronted he presuppositions and moved to promote ‘paleo-orthodoxy' (a return to the primacy of the patristic authors.) He pledged to write nothing new or innovative, only communicating the ancient truths of Christianity to a new generation.

He was the driving force behind the Ancient Christian Commentary series and a new ecumenicism that was not based around social action or liberalism but classic orthodoxy (Evangelicals and Catholics Together and other movements.)

Oden is not a household name, but the circles he ran in were full of people that are. He attributed the support of Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict) for given him confidence to pursue the Ancient Christian Commentary series when many said it was an impossible task. He was close friends with John Richard Neuhaus and was a protestant observer at Vatican II.

This is a bit of an inside baseball story for theology nerds. But I thought it was well worth reading. (I do think the price is a bit ridiculously high right now, but that has nothing to do with the content.)

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/change-of-heart/