Care of the Souls in the Classic Tradition

Preaching's Best Books for PreachersBest Theological Memoir from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds BookstoreHow 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 era-enjoying 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 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. This fascinating memoir walks us through not only his personal history but some of the most memorable chapters in twentieth-century theology.

Often considered one of the sparks that ignited the Reformation, the place of "works" in the Christian life is still debated. In this volume distinguished theologian Thomas Oden draws together Christian teaching from across the centuries to provide a comprehensive witness on this essential topic. Oden listens to the timeless teaching of the patristic writers, the theologians who defined orthodoxy in the first five centuries after Christ. His listening extends not only to well-known fathers such as Augustine, Irenaeus, and Eusebius, but also to lesser-known yet no less important fathers such as Oecumenius, Pseudo-Basil, and Peter Chrysologus. Oden's masterly compendium of classic Christian teaching covers treatment of the poor, the outcast, the imprisoned, and "the least of these." Anyone involved in any ministry of compassion will find stunning spiritual resources here.