10 Best List of Theologians

I've been talking with a friend about making a 10 best list.  Whether we're talking about restaurants, cars, books, universities or theologians, I think 10 best lists are useful.  The only problem with many of these lists, as might come up on a Google search, is that they are not often very clear about what the criteria are to make the list.  Is one's list a list of the best for your money or best in customer satisfaction or what?  Where theologians are concerned, we might concern ourselves with who are best in scholarly research or best in explaining.  Instead of a ten best list one could even form a "10 most..." list where you list most influential or most popular or most important.  And an "important" list would have to be even further clarified--important to who?  Catholics would not list the same theologians that Lutherans or Presbyterians would and so on. But as long as we are clear, I think such lists could be very useful.

Let's not hear any non-sense objections from anyone who might be inclined to misquote Paul from 1 Cor 1:12.  Paul's point has a context that doesn't apply here where the concern is with guiding students in their studies.  Ironically, Paul's comment might actually apply to the fact that we call ourselves "Lutherans," even against Luther's objections.  But lists like these here should also be recommended to non-Christians seeking to know who our authorities are.  If we don't know ourselves, we kind of look stupid.  

A few more points worth making include what we mean by "theologian."  I suppose we can classify theologians as either systematic, biblical, or apologetic.  Hodge would be systematic.  Luther would be biblical. C.S. Lewis would be apologetic.  C.S. Lewis also called himself a lay theologian.  I suppose he wanted to distinguish himself from the other theologians of his day and who wouldn't!  But I don't think "lay," really made the distinction that needed to be made.

Another point is one my friend has made and I will just quote:

I think we're in hard times for orthodoxy.  And I wish I had Lutherans to list.  One thing that alters how I think of this is when Dr. David Wells tried to distinguish Theology from Doctrine.  Doctrine was not something that should vary from age to age.  Good doctrine in one age was good doctrine in another.  Theology tended to be a little more timely.  We do call people who write doctrine "theologians."  But the title might more properly go to those who speak the timeless doctrine into their own age well.  (So Francis Schaeffer was one of the good ones of the 20th century.)

Here's his list of five apologists from the 20th century.

Five Apologists
1.  John Warwick Montgomery (Lutheran!!!)
2.  C.S. Lewis
3.  Francis Schaeffer
4.  John Polkinghorne
5.  Walter Martin

Here's his list of all-time influential, (though this is not a blanket stamp of approval for any of them).

St. Athanasius
Origen
St. Irenaeus
St. Augustine
Thomas Aquinas
Saint Anselm
Martin Luther
John Calvin
John Wesley
John Henry Cardinal Newman

Finally, I won't list systematic theologians because I also agree with my friend on another point:

I don't read a lot of the systematics writers of our time.  As much as I love theology, I don't expect that they're using my time well.  I'm more likely to spend time working through an Aquinas or a Hodge than read some newer writer's system.  But I do think there is challenging writing of the shorter nature.

Thanks Rick!

From here on, I'll add a little more personal note about what my own study habits have included. My reading diet, early on, included a popular periodical circulating called, The Wittenberg Door--a sort of evangelical version of Mad Magazine in which Christians, in a healthy way, poked fun at their own forms and expressions of Christianity.  On their web site, which is a lingering version, they explain that "The Door founders were cool guys with beards, but they didn't know how to spell. It was the fourth issue before they realized it was Wittenberg, not Wittenburg." While sacred beliefs of consequence to society have to be taken seriously, this group expressed a little comic levity--to show, they don't take themselves too seriously, but they do take issue with all forms of legalism in the spirit of the reformation. And their interviews with leading theologians including J.W.M brought a kind of academic mindedness to a culture that otherwise had trouble finding that on their own.

I found my way from there to other resources like the magazine and talk show organization: Modern Reformation where friends of mine are still publishing and appearing as radio show guests.  An older traditional academic voice in popular magazine media is Christianity Today which I've never subscribed to but have occasionally read with pleasure.  Reputable Research Journals that I am aware of for more serious investigations by evangelicals include Biliotheca Sacra, Faith and Philosophy and The Scottish Journal of Theology. Another is the Journal of Evangelical theology.  The Evangelical Theological Society hosts bi-annual conferences where the authors present their works.  And I have attended a few myself. But I am particularly pleased with the online Journal started by J.W.M. called the Global Journal of Classical Theology.

I don't expect all of Christendom to be familiar with these venues and forms of media, but I do think any literate, educated adult who has described his or her self as Christian for as much as ten years, should ideally, at least, be able to name ten theologians of historical significance and know 5 or 6 of the most prominent theologians alive today and to have read books on church history, canonicity and apologetics.  A seminal reference work that every Christian church community should be familiar with is Walter Martin's reference work:Kingdom of the Cults.  Insofar as that is not the case, I think we have to wonder what they are doing with their minds and where their heads are at.  I think the demise of Christianity and the advent of the modern post-Christian western world can be attributed, more than anything else, to the failure of churches to develop their own libraries or somehow put this kind of media in their congregation's hands and make their pulpit ministries a little more challenging to the average mind.

This would be equally as much a problem, if not more so, for Islam except for the fact that Muslim cultures usually integrate religious instruction into government school curriculums.  Mosques themselves generally offer them nothing but a place to pray and maybe a short sermon on the Sabbath.  About Judaism, I don't know.  In America, the exaggerated separation of church and state policy—essentially a form of segregation, has stopped that once existent historical pattern for Christianity from continuing.  Churches have just failed to fill in the void.

Bill

Here's a great annotated bibliography online: http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/johnsonapologetics.pdf