Theological pilgrim bound for celestial city
Clark H. Pinnock's life journey is over. The influential and often controversial evangelical theologian died unexpectedly August 15, 2010 of a heart attack. He was 73. In March this year the long-time professor of Systematic Theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario announced he was withdrawing from public life and revealed that he was battling Alzheimer's disease.
It was a difficult admission for a man whose mercurial mind and openness to the Holy Spirit led him to stake out theological positions that challenged evangelical orthodoxies. Renowned for exploring the frontiers of biblical truth, he was reputed to study carefully, think precisely, argue forcefully and shift his positions willingly if he discovered a more fruitful pathway of understanding. He said he preferred to be known, "not as one who has the courage of his convictions, but one who has the courage to question them and to change old opinions which need changing."
Born in Toronto in 1937, Pinnock graduated from the University of Toronto and went on to study under F. F. Bruce at Manchester University, where he earned his PhD. He also came under the influence of Francis Schaeffer and worked for a time at L'Abri. Pinnock came to the United States in 1965 and taught at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1969-1974 he taught at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and from 1974-1977 at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia.
He arrived at McMaster in 1977 with great hopes of becoming an agent of biblical renewal in what he described as a "comfortable mainline seminary." In his inaugural lecture, he said that evangelical theology must be both conservative and contemporary. "We should strive to be faithful to historic Christian belief taught in Scripture, and at the same time be authentic and responsible to contemporary hearers."
The blend of intellectual theological rigour and emphasis on practical application of Christian principles in daily practice and church life was a hallmark of his personality. He was extremely courteous and engaging in person, keen to worship in almost any setting (including the Airport Christian Fellowship in its holy laughter heyday) and eager to equip people in the churches with the theological tools they needed to engage in mission.
His career goal was to help the church worship God "with freedom, to experience the truth of the Bible in fresh ways, and to be able to share the gospel in a more effective and natural manner."
The late Stanley Grenz once observed that Pinnock "has been lauded as an inspiring theological pilgrim by his admirers and condemned as a dangerous renegade by his foes. Yet no story of evangelical theology in the 20th century is complete without the inclusion of his fascinating intellectual journey from quintessential evangelical apologist to anti-Augustinian theological reformist." In his own account of his spiritual journey, Pinnock recounts how he started right, moved left and then ended up in the centre.
Pinnock's evolving position of the authority of Scripture was one of the early indicators of his questing mindset. His early Defense of Biblical Infallibility (1967) argued for the necessity of belief in the Bible's authority, inspiration and inerrancy. But he did not remain static on the issue, and came to understand that the biblical text can be fully trusted in what it intends to teach and to affirm, even if it may err on matters of detail tangential to the intention of the text (The Scripture Principle, 1984).
The trajectory of his thinking also took him from a Reformed to a neo-Arminian view of salvation. Early on he had maintained "that Calvinism was just scriptural evangelicalism in its purest expression." But by the late 1990s theologians like R.C. Sproul and J.I. Packer were denouncing him as a heretic and unbeliever. Pinnock kept pushing the envelope, championing the concept of "open theism," which emphasizes God's self-limitation in dealing with humans, including His vulnerability. He argued that God could be surprised by events and persuaded to change a decision.
This positioning was anathema to many in the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), who insisted God knows and has even planned the entire future, and that open theism undermined confidence in God. The controversy bubbled along for nearly a decade, and came to a head in 2002 when Pinnock was nearly expelled from the ETS. His membership situation was satisfactorily resolved a year later. Even his opponents acknowledged that Pinnock considered the Bible the primary source for theology, and that his arguments were anchored in Scripture.
He also challenged evangelical orthodoxy with A Wideness in God's Mercy (1992), in which he considered the inclusion of "holy pagans" in the Bible and argued for a more generous understanding of the destiny of the unevangelized.
Another important element of Pinnock's career was his emphasis on the Holy Spirit. He believed Christology had been given much more attention "and the Spirit has been made a kind of junior assistant to Christ." His Flame of Love (1996) was lauded by some as addressing an important neglect, and dismissed by others as "maverick theology."
While he was courageous in his ability to adopt new ideas and positions, Pinnock did allow that theological change has its painful aspects. "Not only am I often not listened to, I am also made to feel stranded theologically: being too much of a free thinker to be accepted by the evangelical establishment and too much of a conservative to be accepted by the liberal mainline."
At press time, a funeral was being planned for Thursday evening, August 19, at Little Bethel Community Church (320 Paling Avenue, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8H 5J9). Organizers were asking mourners to send cards to Pinnock's wife Dorothy at that address.
In November 2002, ChristianWeek published a special feature highlighting Clark Pinnock and his work. Click here to view or download the PDF.
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