Book Review
From a Far Country
A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir by Thomas C. Oden
InterVarsity Press, 2014
(384 pages, $40.00, hardcover)
reviewed by S. M. Hutchens
This is a widespread scenario in the education of religious leaders: The young man, and now we should include the young woman as well, enters the seminary or graduate school of religion and is confronted with something perhaps quite different than expected—not a direct denial of what he assumed Christianity to teach, but Christianity as interpreted according to the best insights of modern science and its forms of social awareness—a Christianity that well-informed modern people who tend to be its cultured despisers can find believable. Contrasted to this he would find, assumed to be retrograde and unacceptable among the intelligent and informed, the simple, popular, in its more insistent forms "fundamentalist," confessional, traditionalist, or orthodox faith in which he might know enough to recognize the faith of his forebears, along with all those who lacked the level of understanding enjoyed by members of the guild into which his teachers are now inducting him.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
27.3—May/June 2014
Facts versus Stereotypes About Love & Marriage in the Land of the Free by Allan C. Carlson
14.6—July/August 2001
The Transformed Relics of the Fall
on the Fulfillment of History in Christ by Patrick Henry Reardon
31.2—March/April 2018
The Transmission of Christianity Is Not a New Task by Nathanael Devlin
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
