Stanley J. Grenz, 1950-2005
I was shocked to learn this week of Stanley Grenz’s death. He died very suddenly on Saturday, March 12 as a result of a massive aneurism. I cannot improve upon David Dockery’s review of Grenz’s life and career as an ‘evangelical’ theologian. So I recommend that you read Dockery’s very personal appraisal of Grenz: ‘When Piety Is Not Enough.’
I was introduced to Grenz’s theology in 1998 while working on my Master’s in Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary. I read Grenz’s Primer on Postmodernism, and my mind began to understand for the first time the philosophical and theological roots of postmodernity. Until his book, I had not properly understood the causes of the epistemological irrationality that seemed to permeate every aspect of the American culture in which I lived. His book made clearer the things I had only begun to be aware of from reading Francis Schaeffer years before. Grenz’s lucid description of postmodernism’s historical underpinnings made clear to me how the rationalism of modernity had vanished once for all as the ruling paradigm of knowledge. I remember reading the book and being so thankful for his clarity and insight into the postmodern ethos. I also remember very clearly how disappointed I was by the final chapter of the book. As an evangelical, I could not understand how he could be so sympathetic to the epistemology (or lack thereof) of postmodernity. In the years since that introduction to his thought, I have come to believe that his theological program is actually antithetical to evangelical orthodoxy. Grenz and his work will not soon be forgotten, but I do hope and pray that his theological paradigm will not carry the day.
