Archive: New Oden book causes stir

By the time it was released in late January, a book by self-described “orthodox evangelical” Thomas C. Oden had prompted widespread criticism across the church and a defense by executives of Abingdon, the book publishing arm of the United Methodist Publishing House. The 208-page Requiem: A Lament in Three Movements offers a critique of, among other things, modern theological education and liberal mainline Protestant church bureaucracies.

Oden, a widely known traditionalist, is professor of theology at the Theological School at United Methodist-related Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, and one of the key leaders in the “Confessing Movement” within United Methodism.

According to Publishing House officials, most of the pre-publication criticism came from individuals who had either read advance manuscripts provided by the House or had seen articles in publications such as Good News magazine. (Oden is a contributing editor to Good News.)

In a January statement, two senior Abingdon executives defended their release of the “unquestionably controversial” book by calling for “intellectual diversity.”

Robert K. Feaster, chief executive officer of the Abingdon Press and the United Methodist Church’s publisher, and Neil Alexander, editorial director of the press and the denomination’s official book editor, said two books will be released soon that reflect other viewpoints on theological education.

The two officials note that “the voice heard in Requiem is that of its author, not its editor or publisher.”

“I regret the [Oden] book was published,” said the Rev. Neal F. Fisher, president of UM-related GarrettEvangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. “It is grossly unfair. Any of us could find anecdotes for anything but the book doesn’t wash as a picture of theological education.”

“There’s enough truth in the book to make you wince,” he said, “but basically it is a very skewed view of theological education. His description of theological education is not as I have experienced it in two seminaries.”

Fisher expressed concern at the portrayal of seminary faculties as being unconcerned about the core of the Christian faith or interested only in their own careers. “This doesn’t represent the professors I have known,” he said.

Fisher expressed concern that the Abingdon imprint will cause readers to think it represents the official position of the church.

Feaster and Alexander respond to that and other criticisms in eight pages of “background information.”

“Discerning readers will recognize that Dr. Oden speaks for himself and perhaps others who are also part of our diverse family,” the Abingdon officials said. “If some mistake publication of his work for editorial endorsement, it is because they neither understand the role of publishers nor read widely enough from the publications of this publisher.”

Acknowledging that decisions are made by Abingdon about what to publish, the two men say “our agreement with the positions of each writer is not a primary concern.”

The Rev. G. Douglass Lewis, president of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington and president of the Association of United Methodist Theological Schools, declined to comment on the book, saying the association had discussed it but had not taken an official position. The association meets twice a year and is largely made up of the deans and presidents of the 13 UM-related seminaries.

The Rev. John E. Harnish, Nashville, Tennessee, staff executive for the Division of Ordained Ministry of the churchwide Board of Higher Education and Ministry, says he can accept Oden’s book as a “personal lament or diatribe” but not as a “reasoned analysis of the life and work of the 13 United Methodist theological schools or theological education in general.”

He said Oden raises some questions that need to be discussed, but observes that the book is “so loaded with personal diatribe there is no room for dialogue or conversation.

“I don’t find it to be a helpful book. He asks legitimate questions, such as the role of tenure. That’s a fair question but he uses that as an attack on the whole of theological education. The institutions themselves are asking that question.” Harnish also objects to Oden’s description of seminaries as “tradition-impaired.”

“How the tradition is being examined, explored, passed on and what is the role of tradition in theological education—that’s a valid question,” he said. “I think there are good answers. On the whole our seminaries are trying to approach that question very creatively. He [Oden] doesn’t ask the question in a way that invites exploration. He makes attacks that tradition has been lost.”

In his book, Oden says the Requiem title refers to “a laying to rest and an attempt to celebrate a life’s passing.” In this instance, he’s referring to the “passing of a culture—my generation of modernity.” More specifically, he points to passing of forms of life “spawned by liberal ecumenism and liberated theological education.”

His “lament” or “expression of deep sorrow” is for “once-vital ethos of liberal learning and institutional establishments of old-line bureaucratic ecumenism.”

After a lifetime of teaching in what he describes as “orthodoxly retrogressive seminary settings,” Oden says he is “convinced that the present system is practically irreformable.”

Trustees of church-related educational institutions are ‘increasingly demanding the right to know why clergy leadership is so prone to political indiscretions, bizarre experiments, and ideological binges,” he says.

In his book, Oden writes of “neopagan ultrafeminist conferences,” and “failure to move the bureaucracy out of the Interchurch Center at 475 Riverside Drive (in New York) and back to America.”

In the last decade, he says the curriculum of seminaries has been liberated for “sexually permissive advocacy, political activism, and ultra-feminist hype.”

The study of ethics, he writes, has become the study of “political correctness”; the study of liturgy “an experiment in color, balloons, poetry and freedom”; and pastoral care “a support group for the sexually alienated.”

Oden decries what he calls the “McGovernization of ecumenical gridlock.” He defines ecumenical gridlock as the “institutional paralysis felt in liberated establishment ecumenism, resulting from loss of support and failure to gain the trust of church moderates and traditionalists.”

In an appendix to the book, Oden asks, “Is anything at all incompatible with Christian teaching?”

“Like fornication, homosexuality is expressly forbidden by scriptural teaching,” he says. “But we see no one urgently petitioning the church to legitimize fornication, as is the case with homosexuality.”

Abingdon officials say the Oden book came to them as an unsolicited manuscript.

Adapted from United Methodist News Service