Clark Pinnock: Postmodern Pioneer
Clark Pinnock is perhaps the most significant evangelical theologian of the last half of the twentieth century.
- Henry Knight III
No twentieth-century evangelical thinker has been more controversial than Clark Pinnock. He 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 twentieth century is complete without the inclusion of the fascinating intellectual journey from quintessential evangelical apologist to anti-Augustinian theological reformist.
- Stanley Grenz
In Pinnock’s interaction with conservative evangelicalism, Pentecostalism, Wesleyianism, process thought, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Roman Catholicism, one sees the vision of an open and generous evangelical theology which still remains true to evangelical distinctives.
- John Sanders
In many respects Clark Pinnock’s fascinating theological pilgrimage illustrates the sometimes strained diversity of theological options which comprise contemporary evangelicalism.
- Gregory Boyd
I received a lovely email from Brian McLaren (March 18 2014) in which he said, ‘I never met Clark. We almost met once, but missed each other. I remember Stan Grenz (who also passed from us too soon) saying to me, “Clark is the canary in the coal mine. If he can survive as an Evangelical, the rest of us can”. I was quite fortunate, unlike Brian McLaren, to meet Clark many times. My wife (Karin) and I were in a house group with Clark and Dorothy Pinnock in the mid-1980s when I was doing PHD studies at McMaster University in Hamilton---Clark was teaching across the road at the time at McMaster Divinity School. Clark and Dorothy often attended St. Cuthbert’s parish where Karin/I were parishoners, and Clark gave the occasional homily in the parish---the sermons were always a delight to hear and most insightful.
The fact that Clark had cut his teeth on the committed thinking/life style of Bruce and Schaeffer meant that a form of thoughtful apologetics, grounded in the centrality of the Bible, was foundational to Clark’s vision of the faith: the publication of Set Forth Your Case: Studies in Christian Apologetics (1967) and A Defense of Biblical Infallibility (1967) positioned Clark Pinnock as the emerging young leader of the evangelical tribe at the tender age of 30 years of age.
Pinnock’s ecclesial roots were Baptist and there is a fundamentalist wing to the Baptist way, but there is also a thoughtful and moderate evangelical ethos---Clark stood within the latter tradition, but the impact of Bruce and Schaeffer made it clear the evangelical and reformed way was a much larger tent than merely the Baptist denomination. The publication of Biblical Revelation: The Foundation of
Christian Theology (1971) further established Pinnock as one of the leaders of the new evangelicals----Clark was teaching at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) at the time, so seminary, publications and pedigree promised much for Pinnock. It seemed it would just be a matter of time before he would become part of the evangelical and reformed Sanhedrin in North America---the path seemed clear and obvious---remain on it and kudos would come Pinnock’s way.
There were some hints, though, of unpredictability round the edges—the core did not seem as solid as some thought it should be. Pinnock began cavorting with Jim Wallis and the Sojourners clan when at TEDS—this did raise the eyebrows of some. Pinnock should just do theology and exegesis----best if he stayed out of political issues. But,
Clark would not be beholden to such a safe and secure way. Many at TEDS were none too pleased with Wallis and Pinnock’s affinities with Sojourners and publishing in their magazine.
Clark Pinnock came to Regent College in the mid-1970s and he brought with him his interest and commitment to the anarchist political left: he invited such worthies as Jim Wallis, John Howard Yoder and Ron Sider to speak in courses and classes—this was not the usual fare and sampling for a reformed and evangelical school---Pinnock had challenged TEDS, now Regent College. But, there were other worries afoot about Pinnock’s faithfulness to the evangelical pedigree. This was an intense period of time when the battle for the Bible was being waged. Harold Lindsell published The Battle for the Bible (1976) and The Bible in the Balance (1979). Pinnock was not quite sure he could go down the same path as Lindsell, and one of Pinnock’s earlier mentors, Francis Schaeffer, wrote letters to both Kenneth Kantzer (President of TEDS) and Hans Rookmaaker, warning them about Pinnock’s drift away from a certain reformed view of the Bible---Schaeffer even suggested to students that they not attend Regent College because Pinnock was teaching at Regent---Clark was certainly moving down pathways that did not warm him to the establishment conservative evangelicals in the 1970s---both his political leanings and attitude towards the authority of the Bible were less and less Sanhedrin mainstream.
Pinnock, as mentioned above, took the Bible with utmost seriousness, but he came to differ with the reformed evangelicals on how the Bible should act as a source of authority and the means by which it should be interpreted. The clashes between Pinnock and Packer are legendary----both agreed on the authority and importance of the Bible—they differed on how the Bible should be interpreted---reminds the historic keeners of the clash between Erasmus and Luther----neither differed on the important role of the Bible—the question was his: whose interpretive authority should have the final say? Erasmus and Pinnock have more in common than Luther and Packer. Pinnock also took the position that when the Bible speaks about salvation history, truth is being revealed. But, the Bible should not be used as a textbook for science or historic facts (in all cases)---such an approach and attitude to the Bible vexed Schaeffer and many other right of centre conservative and reformed evangelicals---Pinnock certainly knew what it was like to be shunned and banned from the tribe---he was even brought before the reformed evangelical Sanhedrin to be tried and tested---like Campolo (but much more intellectually dangerous and threatening than Campolo), Pinnock was acquitted by a whisker.
Pinnock left Regent College in the latter part of the 1970s and took a position at McMaster Divinity School. I arrived in Hamilton to do my PHD in 1983 at McMaster University. I had read some of Clark’s books before 1983, he was becoming rather controversial in the 1970s-1980s and we, as I mentioned above, were part of the same house group. It was in the 1980s that Clark shifted yet again. The turn to the republican right, after his anarchist left leanings, became part of a larger shift by many to the political right in the 1980s under the leadership of Thatcher, Reagan and Mulroney. Clark was rather trendy and conformist in such a move.
It was Pinnock’s approach to the Biblical that tended to hold those less political, though. The publication of The Scripture Principle (1984) was a plough to soil book----this was no uncritical tome on infallibility, inerrancy and inspiration. Clark still took the Bible with utmost seriousness (he never changed on this account)---he did probe the underlying principles that animated the Bible in this new book, though--Biblical theology was reaching new depths. Many within the reformed clan were convinced Pinnock had lost his way. The January 1982 article (Concordia Theological Quarterly), by David Scaer, said it all: “The Rise and Fall of Clark Pinnock”.
Clark was the editor of The Grace of God, the Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism (1989)----such a book came as a definite affront to the evangelicals who had linked the evangelical tradition with reformed theology. There has been and remains so a significant Pelagian-Arminian heritage within the evangelical tribe that cannot be equated with reformed thought. Such a position is reflected well in the festschrift for Donald Dayton: From the Margins: A Celebration of the Theological Work of Donald W. Dayton (2007)---Pinnock and Wallis have “responses” in the weighty tome.
The 1990s saw Pinnock publish books that questioned what he called the paleo-Calvinism that he once upheld. Books such as Tracking the Maze: Finding Our Way Through Modern Theology (1990), A Wideness in God’s Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (1992) and Unbounded Love: A Good News Theology for the 21st Century (194)---open theism was now in vogue and on the agenda----those who were fully and firmly committed to paleo-Calvinism parted distant paths with Pinnock----he was a traitor to the tribe, taking trails he should and need not.
The Clark Pinnock of the 1990s is certainly what established him as the “most significant evangelical theologian of the latter half of the 20th century” and “no twentieth-century evangelical thinker has been more controversial than Clark Pinnock”.
The publication of Barry Callen’s Clark H. Pinnock: Journey Toward Renewal in 2000 brought together the complex nature of Pinnock’s journey in the evangelical and reformed world of the latter half of the 20th century. The modern evangelical world has been dominated, for the most part, by the reformed read of the Bible and the Christian tradition. There is, though, the alternate read of the Bible and Christian tradition which sees itself as equally evangelical---this is the Arminian way as embodied in the Holiness movements, Wesleyanism, Pentecostalism, Nazarenes, Orthodoxy, aspects of the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions---Pinnock, to his credit, has dared to mine these equally important heritages, but the paleo-Calvinists have been none too pleased by one of their own doing such a thing.
Clark has gone much further, though, than merely bringing to the fore the richness and validity of the Pelagian-Arminian tradition contra the more reformed commitment to Augustine-Luther-Calvin. Pinncok has argued from the Bible such positions as open theism, a much broader notion of the wideness of God’s grace, and, in William Crockett’s Four Views of Hell (1996), Clark’s article, “The Conditional View”, challenged the notion of eternal torment for those who did not accept Christ in this life---yet again, Clark was undermining the reformed tradition. Pinnock was going to places few dared to go. There is a sense in which the recent film Hellbound? has some affinities with Clark’s early probes---a read of “The Conditional View” is must read for those questioning the traditional Roman Catholic and evangelical read of Heaven-Hell.
There can be no doubt that Clark Pinnock in the 1980s-1990s challenged and undermined the dominant reformed evangelical synthesis that had shaped and defined the evangelical ethos in post WW II North America. There was a creative breadth to Pinnock found in few evangelical theologians at the time---his work with Gregory Boyd and John Sanders in the 1990s has simmered down since then, but it was such a creative stirring that, in many ways, brought into being the postmodern emergent church tradition that holds so many today.
Would Clark, if alive, lead/support/affirm the emergent church movement today?—he would, I suspect, continue the journey as a thoughtful and reflective theologian, trying to make sense of the faith process as the hard and troubling questions came his way.
Pinnock was controversial in some ways--in other ways, quite establishment and politically right of centre. Clark’s Biblical exegesis took him to places in the areas of the wideness of God’s mercy, open-free will theism, Arminianism and doubting the notion of eternal punishment that few, as reformed evangelicals, dared go--such a going forth has had an impact on the postmodern emergent church tradition. But, Pinnock’s politics, as embodied in “A Pilgrimage of Political Theology”, is decidedly right of centre----most republican, indeed. I have tracked and traced Clark’s political journey in two essays: “Clark Pinnock and Political Theology: Canadian Comprador” and Clark Pinnock: Canadian Theologian of the Empire”. Most who study Pinnock’s life and writings only do such from a narrower approach to exegesis and theology that tends to ignore the larger political, economic and social issues---there is a subtler form of Gnosticism in such an approach---Clark was quite status quo when it came to the larger public and political issues. I often chatted with him about this in the 1980s when I was at McMaster and in a house group with Clark/Dorothy.
I find it most telling that both Callen’s biography of Pinnock and the more recent festschrift dedicated to him, “Semper Reformandum Studies in Honour of Clark H. Pinnock” (2003), virtually ignore Pinnock’s political theology---why is this the case? What does it say about a limited, reductionistic and narrow approach to doing exegesis and theology----much safer, of course, to remain in an enclosed context, but as Milton once said, “I cannot admire a cloistered virtue that never sallies forth”.---to Pinnock’s credit, he dared to sally forth into the political and public realm unlike many of his more cloistered commentators. We could differ with Pinnock’s political theology (and we should), but he cannot be accused or never sallying forth into the substantive political issues of his time.
The fact that the most important Canadian political philosopher and theologian, George Grant, taught at McMaster University, and the equally disturbing fact that Pinnock and Grant never engaged one another, does speak much about Pinnock’s approach to doing exegesis, theology and politics. Grant was very much a Canadian prophet and public intellectual in a way Pinnock never was---Grant pushed the boundaries further and deeper than Pinnock. Pinnock lived, moved and had his being within the spreading tent of the evangelical ethos----Grant was a larger and more significant presence. Both men were Canadian theologians and both speak much about the unique and distinctive way of understanding the unique Canadian Christian faith journey ethos.
I began this article with an email I received from Brian McLaren, and I end with it: I never met Clark. We almost met once, but missed each other. I remember Stan Grenz (who also passed from us too soon) saying to me, “Clark is the canary in the coal mine. If he can survive as an Evangelical, the rest of us can”. There can be no doubt that Clark Pinnock was, in many ways, a pioneer of the postmodern emergent and emerging church tradition---he was, of course, much more rigorous and profound in his approach than those who claim to belong to such a tribe and clan, though.
Ron Dart
I was privileged to have lived with Clark Pinnock as student renter at Regent College from 1974 to 1976 in a basement room of a house he had bought in Kitsilano (Vancouver). I told him and Dorothy (his wife) a few times that my claim to fame would be that I once rented a room from Clark Pinnock…
For that first year, lifelong friends psychology professor (Dr.) Mack and Joan Goldsmith and daughters rented the main floor. That’s a claim to fame too! Mack was the first “scholar-in-residence” Regent hosted. We all participated delightedly in a Pinnock-led Bible Study group in their home.
I had been forewarned that my theological categories were about to be enlarged under the tutelage of Clark. That from a fellow PBer (Plymouth Brethren) adherent who had studied under him at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS). (I’d also been direly warned against studying at Regent College by other fellow PBers because “they” did not accept the first 11 chapters of Genesis “literally” (please see in response a book review here: http://waynenorthey.com/book-review/the-lost-world-of-genesis-one-ancient-cosmology-and-the-origins-debate/); and because “they” taught “amillenialism”.
No one warned me however that I might be forced (indeed “kicking and screaming”) through two much more excruciating conversions at Regent College, both directly due to Clark Pinnock, in particular an interterm course he taught in 1975 called The Politics of Jesus, based on John Howard Yoder’s book first published in 1972:
1. Christian spirituality is meaningless if not expressed in the political/social. In other words, it is above all incarnational! (Surprise – it actually includes the dirty-fingernails “earth-bound” public square and space!)
2. The way of doing politics in the social realm is the non-violent way of the Cross. (Surprise – it actually means nonviolence!)
In other words: being “in Christ”/“a new creation” eschewed all forms of Gnosticism, all forms of redemptive violence. Wow! This began actually to sound Christian to me!
To be such consequently meant aligning oneself with the grain of the universe (Stanley Hauerwas) or the moral nature of the universe (Nancey Murphy and Geore F.R. Ellis) that we were to aggressively pursue in a creation-based ethical arc established in Genesis One. If only in subsequent Hebrew and Church history I say from the rooftops!
As Ron indicated in this article, Clark never changed his mind (which he was ever wont to do if confronted by an alternative compelling theological argument) about point one of my double conversion story at Regent College. But he subsequently reverted to a pre-Christian (indeed pre-creation) ethic concerning violence – without compelling theological argument so far as I know. Which means he was all too (contextually) human!
On two occasions, each in response to articles he had written, once in Faith Today, once in Christian Week (both Canadian evangelical periodicals) I questioned his backing capital punishment (in the former) and American engagement in the First Gulf War (in the latter). On both occasions, he was shortly afterwards back at Regent College to teach a summer course. On both occasions I invited him by lengthy letter to dialogue. He both times graciously acceded. On the issue of capital punishment, I quoted Pinnock against Pinnock. He had previously taken a strong position against retribution at a 1976 Corrections conference I had co-organized (and later published the proceedings of, and other articles, under Mennonite Central Committee Canada, entitled Crime Is a Peace Issue). In the latter case, on a beautiful summer evening we walked about the University of British Columbia campus, not as I had hoped in deep theological engagement – there was none – but talking more generally about our families and life. Which was great nonetheless.
Clark never changed his mind again about either viewpoint. Though friends told me that Clark had attended with indication of warm appreciation, a conference at McMaster University on emergent Restorative Justice that I had been unable to go to.
I wrote Clark after the second encounter with more on my theological concerns, summed up in my claiming that his ethic now stopped at the end of the Hebrew Bible – though even there he missed the “torah of nonviolence” (Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb) that coursed through that tradition, that I had first also learned from him in a marvelous Amos/Galatians course he co-taught with Carl Armerding in 1974. But in each case, he presented no counter theological argument. I concluded as Ron: that Clark, my first teacher then mentor in the nonviolent way of the Cross had indeed lost his way in favour of a vapid republicanism so contrary to everything Christ.
But I long-since made my peace with Clark. Well, there never really was conflict per se. You may wish in this regard to read my tribute to him on this website at his passing: http://www.clarion-journal.com/clarion_journal_of_spirit/2010/08/remembering-clark-pinnock-by-wayne-northey.html.
In that tribute I mention that Clark:
• set me by example (he was a prison volunteer under M2/W2 when I first met him) and encouragement on a 40-year career (just retired in 2014!) in peacemaking criminology within criminal justice;
• endorsed my coming-of-age novel that amongst other things wrestles with State violence against international and domestic enemies, and ultimately with violence in a doctrine of hell as “eternal conscious torment”. I just re-edited it and posted notice on my website here (including some downloadable chapters): http://waynenorthey.com/chrysalis-crucible/;
• infused me with a passionate embrace of spirituality as incarnational and nonviolent that like God’s hesed in Psalm 30:5 is for a lifetime!
Clark’s aggressive passion for theology and the “theo” subject, his utter openness to “truth” and changing his mind regardless of praise or censure, his humility and profound faith have impacted me like no other for forty years and counting!
Posted by: Wayne Northey | June 01, 2014 at 07:15 AM