Theologians and Their Stories

An author writes out of experience and life story. Some may pretend to be purely scientific, objective and detached but that detachment is part of that author’s experience and story. There is no detached author as there are not detached human beings. This means all theologians at some level come to the table of theology to theologize their story.

Not long ago I was able in the same season to read biographies or autobiographies of three major theologians of the 20th Century: Bultmann, Barth and Moltmann. All three came into maturity through World War 2 and the National Socialists, Bultmann somehow able to sustain his position at Marburg, Barth sent off to Switzerland, and Moltmann, though a prison camp in the UK became a theologian. Each of them had a story to tell, each of their theology reflecting their experience in important ways, each of them also adventuring in new directions.

Whose story has reshaped your understanding of that theologian the most?

Knowing a theologian’s story does two things to our reading of their theology: (1) it makes them personal and (2) it contextualizes their theology. Hence, the desire on the part of many to know what a theologian is like at the personal level and to discover the story of that theologian.

Some stories are dramatic (Luther, Calvin, Bonhoeffer, Moltmann) and some are rather bland (names not mentioned!).

John Byron and Joel N. Lohr have provided for many of us brief biographies of a number of theologians (I use the term a bit broadly because it includes NT specialists as well) in their new book, I (Still) Believe. I suspect this will become a go-to book for brief introductions to some of the more well-known theologians of our day.

John and Joel wrote to the authors asking them to tell their story and to to tell us why they still believe, since many who enter into theological studies either adjust their faith dramatically or drop it altogether. There is no one form to each story though each was asked about faith and scholarship, and here are those whose stories are found in I (Still) Believe:

Richard Bauckham
Walter Brueggemann
Ellen F. Davis
James D.G. Dunn
Gordon D. Fee
Beverly Roberts Gaventa
John Goldingay
Donald A. Hagner
Morna D. Hooker
Edith M. Humphrey
Andrew T. Lincoln
Scot McKnight
J. Ramsey Michaels
Patrick D. Miller
R.W.L. (Walter) Moberly
Katharine Doob Sakenfeld
Phyllis Trible
Bruce K. Waltke