CLARK PINNOCK (1937-2010)

Justin Taylor writes:

Controversial Canadian theologian Clark H. Pinnock died on Sunday afternoon (August 15, 2010) at the age of 73. He and his wife Dorothy were members of Little Bethel Community Church, where the funeral service will be held.

In March of this year he had written to a couple of colleagues to explain why he was retiring from active theological work:

I want to inform you that I am now middle stage Alzheimer’s. I will not be able to do my writing etc. I am 73 years now, and I’ve enjoyed my biblical three score and ten. I am not bitter. I have had a good life. I’ll meet you over Jordan if not before.

You are free to make this news known.

With love,

Clark

Taylor offers an assessment of this evangelical theologian whose theological position kept moving, many would say, away from crucial Biblical positions.  Others would disagree.  In addition to his own assessment, Taylor points readers to Russell Moore's “Why Conservative Evangelicals Should Thank God for Clark Pinnock."

Me:  I count myself privileged to have sat under Pinnock for a semester during his more conservative years.  I found him gracious, humble, deeply engaged in pursuing truth, and a stimulating lecturer.  He was always honing his material, and fully open to class dialog.   I did not follow his later wanderings (though my dippings in his Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit I found vigorous and stimulating), but I have only fond memories of the man and great respect for his personal integrity.

I note one commentator to Taylor's blog wrote:

My first book was a sustained critique of Pinnock’s position on annihilationism (or conditional immortality). I sent it to him to make sure it was fair. He went further and gave it a glowing endorsement along with my other three endorsers of J.I. Packer, Wayne Grudem, and Dallas Willard.

Clark Pinnock blessed me with his generosity and humility!

Pinnock's endorsing a book that critiqued him doesn't surprise me.  It sounds exactly like the man I remember from so many years ago. 

Another person left this comment, which also does not surprise me:

The church he was involved with is a small, very missional and very evangelical congregation in a very poor section of town. Whatever his left-of-center views concerning God’s foreknowledge and the Scriptures, they didn’t keep him from being engaged in Kingdom work.

Christianity Today has an excellent, balanced article on Clark Pinnock.  (HT: David Virtue)  It concludes with these words:

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."