VANCOUVER, British Columbia (ABP) — As scholars and friends mourned the sudden and premature death of Baptist theologian Stanley Grenz, 55, they likewise wondered what would be the legacy of the man often called the leading evangelical theologian of his time.
Grenz, who died March 12, a day after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage while he slept in his Vancouver home, led evangelicals into newfound respectability in worldwide theological circles and — to the worry of conservative friends and foes — to engage postmodern thought.
“He was one of the very first to see, in the postmodern turn in philosophy and culture, great opportunities for the gospel,” said author-pastor-speaker Brian McLaren, often cited with Grenz as the key thought leaders of the emerging-church movement. “Many other theologians only saw dangers. And their critiques of [Grenz's] work struck me as harsh, reactionary, uncharitable and often grossly unfair.”
A popular professor at Carey Theological College and Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Grenz was a prolific theologian who published 25 books on such diverse topics as ethics, eschatology, homosexuality and the Trinity. A fan of science-fiction and student of pop culture, Grenz used illustrations from Star Trek to explain postmodern philosophy in 1996's A Primer on Postmodernism.
“Stan was without any doubt the foremost evangelical theologian of this moment,” said co-author and friend Roger Olson, professor of theology at Baylor's Truett Theological Seminary, where Grenz taught for a year.
But the diminutive Grenz liked to describe himself simply as “a pietist with a PhD,” and friends say his life mirrored his call for integrating warm-hearted Christian orthodoxy with rigorous intellectual engagement. Admirers and critics alike say he gave evangelical theology something sorely needed — a heart.
He was described as a gentle soul who embraced his critics and encouraged his friends. He often opened seminary classes by playing praise songs on his guitar. He played guitar and trumpet with the worship team at Vancouver's First Baptist Church, where his wife, Edna, serves as worship minister. The church as a community of believers was likewise important in his theology. Books like Created for Community (1996) voiced the emerging church's theme of balancing evangelical individualism with the accountability of the local congregation.
Many say Grenz's greatest contribution was as a theological bridge-builder, helping evangelicals leave their “theological ghetto” and engage the larger scholarly world.
“He was always trying to develop relationships of dialogue and mutual understanding between groups of theologians who otherwise tended to be cut off from each other,” Olson said. “… He regarded much of traditional evangelical theology as too rationalistic (foundationalist) and scholastic for postmodern Christians. However, he was not uncritical toward postmodernism and never capitulated to the deconstructionist impulses of radical postmodernism.”
Nonetheless, some conservative friends and critics say the bridge Grenz built is leading evangelicals to a dangerous place.
“We all admired his prolific pen and his tireless work ethic,” wrote conservative David Dockery, president of Union University, after Grenz's death. “Stan Grenz was a committed Baptist, a churchman of the first order and a warm-hearted pietist. Unfortunately, his pietism didn't translate into evangelical coherence or orthodox consistency.”
Many conservatives embraced the “early Grenz,” when the scholar defended the Baptist tradition and evangelical sexual ethics, while venturing more progressive ideas on women in ministry and homosexuality.
But Dockery and others parted ways with Grenz after the Canadian theologian wrote Revisioning Evangelical Theology in 1994, which called for an overhaul of the evangelical approach to theology into one centered on the Kingdom of God and Christian community. Conservative critics said that would abandon evangelicals' central commitment to biblical authority and propositional truth.
Olson disagreed. While Grenz considered doctrine “a living tradition” that must not be fixed in stone, Olson said, he was not a relativist but believed in “the absoluteness of God's revelation in Jesus Christ.”
Revisioning was a “seminal” book that — along with follow-up works — blazed a trail that other theologians have followed, said John Franke, co-author with Grenz of Beyond Foundationalism (2000), which argued for a philosophical approach that moves beyond the conservative-liberal divide over propositional truth.
Evangelical theology is “still in the trajectory” set by Revisioning, Franke said.
Grenz's ambitious decade-long undertaking rightly earned him the distinction of evangelicalism's leading theologian, but Franke, associate professor of theology at Biblical Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, added: “I can understand other folks, more conservative, not feeling that way. But even where people don't agree with him, he is raising questions that even conservative theologians need to be raising. Even for folks who really can't agree with him, they are still benefiting from the way he was raising the issues.”
Some conservatives now want even to deny Grenz the “evangelical” label. Timothy George, dean of Samford's Beeson Divinity School, won't go that far, but he is worried about his friend nonetheless.
“While I could not follow the trajectory of his theological work — which seemed to me to embrace the postmodern paradigm with an enthusiasm that did not always recognize the dangers in such a move — I always appreciated Stan's desire to work within the context of historic Christian orthodoxy,” George told Associated Baptist Press. “Despite our disagreements, I greatly valued his friendship and collegiality and join with many others in mourning our loss.”
Grenz's willingness to take the lead — and the heat — for revisioning evangelicalism was what drew so many people to him, said Christopher Morton of Manchester, England, a young theologian who studied under Grenz. “These books were meant to be dialogue partners with the new generation of thinkers, scholars and theologians who would be taking evangelicalism into the 21st century and beyond,” he wrote in a tribute.
While an earlier generation of scholars — like Carl F.H. Henry and Millard Erickson — helped put evangelicalism on the map, Grenz “really was the pioneer” in bridging the evangelical-mainline gap, said John Franke, and that will be his enduring legacy. “It is vitally important in this moment to heal some of this division that has plagued American Christianity,” Franke said.
If he had lived, Grenz might soon have taken this quest to a very prominent new arena — the prestigious liberal bastion of Harvard Divinity School, which reportedly was considering him for its evangelical professorship. “I don't know whether he would have accepted it,” said Olson, “but he was a frontrunner for it.”
Grenz's rise to prominence at a relatively young age was fueled in part by his prodigious writing — 25 books in 21 years. He told friends he needed to write while he was young because his father died at an early age.
Still most colleagues say his best work lay ahead of him.
“His writing ministry will only grow in significance in the years ahead, as people realize the extraordinary treasure we had among us,” wrote McLaren, who credited Grenz for the title of his latest book, A Generous Orthodoxy. “What we will never have are the books Stanley would yet have written. … Now that work will need to be taken up by those of us who enjoyed the blessing of his teaching and example.”
“He was a man of small physical stature. But the space he leaves — in our hearts and in our Christian community — cannot be filled by a dozen others. “
While Grenz's death “is a huge loss,” Franke agreed, there's no shortage of young scholars eager to follow his path. “There are a lot of people who were wanting to do the kind of work Stan was doing. And many of those people have some connection to Stan. … There will be a lot of really good things happening from a lot of good sources and directions.”