Thomas Oden’s A Change of Heart is one of the most remarkable books I’ve read this year (2025).
Oden’s influence on me has been both profound and complex, similar to my first encounter with Francis Schaefer more than two decades ago. Whereas Schaefer’s works opened my church planter’s understanding of Christianity and cultural engagement so that it could extend far beyond the irrelevance of door-to-door “soul-winning,” Oden opened my understanding of what it means to pursue Christian unity through healthy, orthodox ecumenism centered on early Christian consensus.
A Digressio
[Here’s a thought: what if the “culture wars” will continue to be futile until the Church repents of its hubris and humbles itself toward Christian unity? Although there is obviously a vast chasm that needs to be mended in order to restore said unity, it is the real cultural priority.
The Apostle Peter reminds us, ‘it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God’ (1 Pet. 4:17). Whether we’re looking at the East/West, Protestant Reformation, or the fragmentations of “enlightened modernity,” the divisions and distortions of the Church that all sincere Christians lament are not simply “historical accidents.” They’re the fruit of God’s refining judgment on the household of God. In the apostolic and classical periods, Christianity was confessed as one Lord, one faith, one baptism; up through the first seven ecumenical councils, the Church largely maintained that unity. I would argue that human pride and forgetfulness of our catholic (i.e., universal) inheritance have produced the bitter fruit of schism. Vincent of Lérins (d. c. 445 AD) asserted that true Christianity is “that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.” Oden summarized this as “the remembering community.”
If my argument is true, then I would further assert that our task is not to double down on siloed identities, but to reach back to the Patristics for guidance and entrust ourselves to Holy Spirit of God while working together to do good (1 Pet. 4:19). To be clear, I’m not suggesting we achieve unity by merely erasing our doctrinal distinctives; but we do need to humble ourselves under Christ’s lordship and repent of the sins that fractured the body of Christ.
Further, I’m not suggesting we need to “go back in time”,” but we do need to seek once again to live as those to whom the faith was once delivered. In this sense, the real cultural priority before us is not the “culture wars” but the restoration of Christian unity. Again, I’m not talking about a lowest-common-denominator ecumenism, but a catholicity marked by truth, holiness, humility, and love of God and neighbor. As it pertains to the most evil aspect of our culture wars, at the very least we ought to do the one without leaving the other undone.]
I first heard of Thomas Oden when I received the inaugural commentary (on Mark’s Gospel) from the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series (ACCS) when it was initially offered by IVP as a subscription-based, serial release around 2007. At that time, I only knew Oden as the name of the general editor of the series. Under his direction, IVP went on to publish the Ancient Christian Texts, the Ancient Christian Doctrine series, and two books on Early African Christianity.
Several years ago, I read through Oden’s three-volume Systematic Theology, a masterpiece of irenic theology, emphasizing the shared beliefs of the major Christian traditions rather than their differences. It was that stimulating experience that sent me down the rabbit hole of Paleo-orthodoxy and on a journey to explore Oden’s entire corpus—especially his later works.
A Change of Heart is not only well-written and delightful to read, but it’s also extremely insightful as a window into God’s providence and a model for Christian humanism in the 21st century.
What follows is a very brief biography, Oden’s theological journey in his own words (using quotes from my commonplace book which is my favorite part of this post), and a list of his publications (sourced from Wikipedia and the Drew University Special Collections Library.)
A Brief Biography of Thomas Oden (1931–2016)
Thomas Clark Oden was born in Altus, Oklahoma on October 21, 1931. His father was an attorney and his mother, a gifted piano teacher. On August 10, 1952, he married Edrita Pokorny, his bride of 46 years with whom he raised three children: Clark, Edward, and Laura.
Oden was a prolific writer, editor, and a scholar of remarkable range and depth, serving as the Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology and Ethics in the Theological School and Graduate School of Drew University from 1980 until his retirement in 2004. Preceded in death by his wife in 1998, Oden died on December 8, 2016 at the age of 85.
Oden’s academic achievements reveals a man of rigorous intellect and concerted self-discipline. Consider that he first earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Oklahoma in 1953, then a Bachelor of Divinity from Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology in 1956, next a Master of Arts from Yale University in 1958, and finally a Ph.D. in theology from Yale in 1960. Later, in 1990, he was recognized with a Doctor of Letters from Asbury College for his contributions to the renewal of classical Christian thought.
Oden’s teaching career was comparably remarkable. Beyond Drew University, he also lectured at Yale University, Southern Methodist University, Phillips University, Texas Medical School, Princeton Theological Seminary, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, the School of Theology at Claremont, and the General Theological Seminary. He taught well beyond America’s borders also, receiving academic appointments at Ruprecht-Karl Universität in Heidelberg, the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, and Moscow State University.
Oden further gave the church and the academy an extraordinary corpus of work that treated themes as diverse as evangelical identity, the Methodist tradition, church discipline, controversies in modern theology, Kierkegaard, John Wesley, and postmodernism. His largest gift, however, was the retrieval of the consensual tradition of the early church, something he referred to as the “ecumenical consensus.”
Lastly, Oden made a substantial contribution to public life. Not only was he actively involved in numerous ecclesial, professional, and civic organizations, but he also participated in or was present at some of the most interesting occasions in the twentieth century. For example, he participated in the WCC in the 1960s, observed Vatican II in 1965, joined the White House Conference on Urban Initiatives in 1985, and interacted with key figures like Karl Barth, Richard John Neuhaus, Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), Jaroslav Pelikan, Carl F. H. Henry, and J. I. Packer.
When Oden retired in 2004, it was clear he had made a significant impression on the landscape of Christian thought. His spiritual journey from theological liberalism to robust classical Christian orthodoxy was deeply heartening. In my opinion, his legacy will be his implacable call to “paleo-orthodoxy,” a poignant summons to the modern church to return with fresh devotion to the wisdom of the church fathers.
Oden’s Theological Journey In His Own Words
“Every turn a left turn…I was challenged to enter the ministry, but not to a ministry of Word and Sacrament or of evangelization or soul care. The national Methodist Youth Movement was enthralled with the imagination of a revolution that we thought would essentially replace the traditional gospel” (47-48).
“I went into the ministry to use the church to elicit political change according to a soft Marxist vision of wealth distribution and proletarian empowerment” (50).
“I confess now that I become entrapped with the desire for upward mobility in an academic environment that would generate ideas for a regulatory society” (56).
“Theology was desperately in search of a method, whether it was borrowed from cutting-edge philosophy, social theory or political life, as long as it didn’t begin with revelation” (80).
“I was able to confess the Apostles’ Creed, but only with deep ambiguity. But I stumbled over ‘he arose from the dead.’ I had to demythologize it and could say it only symbolically” (85).
“I had drifted toward a Christ without a cross and a conversation without repentance” (90).
Wolfhart Pannenberg (Revelation as History). “Pannenberg offered brilliantly crafted historical arguments that allowed me to get beyond the situation ‘ethic of the moment’ in which I was tangled. Bultmann had narrowed history to the moment of existential encounter in the now. Oppositely, Pannenberg extended the focus of history to its broadest frame: creation to consummation. That forever redefined my trajectory” (97).
“To my amazement Pannenberg presented evidence-based arguments that the resurrection of Jesus was the decisive event in history pointing to the end of history. Nobody before Pannenberg had made that connection as clearly as he did” (98).
By Christmas 1970, Oden had found his way to the Lérins’ Aids to Remembering... “From then on my reasoning gradually became a straightforward matter of identifying those apostolic teachings which believers from all places and times confessed and believed with one voice and for which they had been willing to die. That form of reasoning awakened in me a deeper form of critical reasoning that could penetrate and discern the deficits of modern naturalism. I became better prepared to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of modernity by viewing them in the light of consensual Christianity. At last I realized that the world was best viewed from the vantage point of the glory of God revealed in history. The seed of the Word was being planted precisely within the fertilized soil of ever waning cultures” (143).
“To become an articulate Christian believer in a modern university is to become a pariah to many. My friends were seeing this from within their social locations in the university. I was looking at the university from the vantage point of a different social location: the community of faithful consensus sustained over two millennia” (146).
“During those days of vocational discernment, what was changing in me was the recognition of the unchanging character of God” (147).
“I pledged to resist the temptation to quote modern writers unless schooled in the whole counsel of God than the best ancient classic exegetes. Set apart for unoriginality, I had a contrarian task in the university I loved” (147).
“In the study of social continuity, I was turning now to neglected modern observers such as Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith and Edmund Burke. Previously I had had no exposure whatsoever to the intellectual history of conservative thought, which I had stereotyped as backward and mean-spirited. Meanwhile I wondered why the durability of the classic Christian consensus had remained unexplained and virtually ignored in the academy” (147-148).
“I had worked hard to get an education, but now I had to work even harder to overcome the education I got” (148ff).
“Only when I learned to reason analogically from the incarnation of God to human empathy did I get the full impact of biblical reasoning” (149).
“At last I learned to recover the uncomplicated truth that God precisely becomes human in the flesh, dies for me, rises again and saves me from my sins. All these are viewed by consensual Christianity as historical events” (149).
“It is a matter of historical fact that orthodoxy emerged out of consensual reflection on Jewish and Christian Scripture in the first four centuries and has remained substantially in place ever since. It was received by believers around the world and sustained largely unchanged for the past twenty centuries. To be orthodox is to be grounded in the earliest consensual classic Christian teaching” (161).
“Modernity has only lasted less than a dozen generations, while orthodox Christianity as already flourished for more than four hundred generations and shows no sign of fatigue” (164).
“The providential reason God allows heresy among the faithful, according to the ancient Christian writers, is to challenge the worshiping community to correct its exaggerations so as to bring it back into the balanced consensus” (165).
Oden’s Extensive Bibliography (Books Only)
The Crisis of the World and the Word of God, 1962.
Radical Obedience: The Ethics of Rudolf Bultmann, 1964.
The Community of Celebration, 1964.
Kerygma and Counseling, 1966.
Contemporary Theology and Psychotherapy, 1967.
The Structure of Awareness, 1969,1978 (Standard Book #:687-40075-9).
The Promise of Barth, 1969.
Beyond Revolution, 1970.
The Intensive Group Experience, 1972.
After Therapy What?, 1974.
Game Free: the Meaning of Intimacy, 1974.
Should Treatment Be Terminated?, 1976.
TAG: The Transanctional Game, 1976.
Parables of Kierkegaard, 1978.
Agenda for Theology, 1979, rpt as After Modernity...What?, 1992 (ISBN 0-310-75391-0).
Guilt Free, 1980.
Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry, 1983 (ISBN 0-06-066353-7).
Oden, Thomas C. (1984). Care of Souls in the Classic Tradition. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, cop. Archived from the original on 2005-02-17.
Conscience and Dividends, 1985.
Oden, Thomas C. (1987). Becoming a minister. Classical Pastoral Care. Vol. 1. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co.
Oden, Thomas C. (1987). Ministry through Word and Sacrament. Classical Pastoral Care. Vol. 2. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co.
Oden, Thomas C. (1987). Pastoral Counsel. Classical Pastoral Care. Vol. 3. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co.
Oden, Thomas C. (1987). Crisis Ministries. Classical Pastoral Care. Vol. 4. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co.
Crisis Ministries, was Vol 1 Classical Pastoral Care Series, 1986, rpt as Vol 4, 1994.
Becoming a Minister, Vol 1 Classical Pastoral Care Series, 1986, 1994.
The Living God, Systematic Theology, Vol 1, 1987, 1992.
Doctrinal Standards in the Wesleyan Tradition, 1988, rev 2008 (ISBN 0-310-75240-X).
Phoebe Palmer: Selected Writings, 1988.
Ministry Through Word and Sacrament, Vol 4 Classical Pastoral Care Series, 1988, rpt 1994.
The Word of Life Systematic Theology, Vol 2, 1989, rpt 1992, 1998.
First and Second Timothy and Titus: Interpretation, 1989, rpt 2012.
Pastoral Counsel, Vol 3 Classical Pastoral Care Series, 1989, rpt 1994.
Life in the Spirit, Systematic Theology, Vol 3, 1992 rpt 1994,1998.
Two Worlds: Notes on the Death of Modernity in America and Russia, 1992.
Oden, Thomas C. (1993). The Transforming Power of Grace. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press.
The Transforming Power of Grace, 1993 (ISBN 0-687-42260-4).
Oden, Thomas (1994). John Wesley’s Scriptural Christianity: A Plain Exposition of His Teaching on Christian Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Corrective Love: The Power of Communion Discipline, 1995 (ISBN 0-570-04803-6).
Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements, 1995 (ISBN 0-687-01160-4).
The Justification Reader, 2002.
The Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity, 2003 (ISBN 0-06-009785-X).
One Faith: The Evangelical Consensus (written with J. I. Packer), 2004 (ISBN 0-8308-3239-4).
The Humor of Kierkegaard: An Anthology, 2004.
Turning Around the Mainline: How Renewal Movements Are Changing the Church, 2006.
How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind, 2007, pb 2010.
Good Works Reader, Classic Christian Reader Series, 2007.
Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology, 2009 (ISBN 978-0061449710).
In Search of Solitude: Living the Classic Christian Hours of Prayer, 2010.
The African Memory of Mark: Reassessing Early Church Tradition, 2011.
Early Libyan Christianity, 2011.
Oden, Thomas C. (2012). God and Providence. John Wesley’s Teachings. Vol. 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Oden, Thomas C. (2012). Christ and Salvation. John Wesley’s Teachings. Vol. 2. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Oden, Thomas C. (2013). Pastoral Theology. John Wesley’s Teachings. Vol. 3. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Oden, Thomas C. (2014). Ethics and Society. John Wesley’s Teachings. Vol. 4. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Oden, Thomas C. (2014). A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity.
Oden, Thomas C. (2011). Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (PDF). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03., that Oden describes as a multi-volume patristic commentary on Scripture by the “fathers of the church” spanning “the era from Clement of Rome (fl. c. 95) to John of Damascus (c.645-c.749).”
In the Wesleyan Theological Heritage, edited with help from Leicester R. Longden ISBN 978-0310754718.
See Drew University’s special archive collection for a complete list of Oden’s publications.