In my seminary teaching I appeared to be relatively orthodox, if by that one means using an orthodoxy vocabulary. I could still speak of God, sin and salvation, but always only in demythologized, secularized and worldly wise terms. God became the Liberator, sin became oppression and salvation became human effort. The trick was to learn to sound Christian while undermining traditional Christianity.
Thomas C. Oden, in A Change of Heart: A Personal and Theological Memoir (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2014, p. 81); see also The Remaking of a Modern Mind: A Conversation with Thomas Oden
[Also interesting from Oden: My first real encounter with conservative evangelicals did not go well for them or for me...In the austere atmosphere of that most conservative Baptist seminary [SWBTS, rlv], I proceeded to set for an appeal to “worldly theology” as a new and promising basis for seminarians of different viewpoints to come together...As I finished my presentation, President Naylor rose, quieted the restless audience and expressed polite appreciation for the intent of my address. He then began extemporaneously and with genuine rhetorical elegance to take on point by point the substance of my speech. In his warm, congenial and pastoral way, he deftly refuted practically every argument I had made. After the service, with great charm President Naylor again grasped my hand warmly and expressed his gratitude for my presence on Seminary Hill. I went away feeling trounced by an aging wise man of gracious and articulate Southern culture. That encounter helped me realize that conservative evangelical thinking was capable of real intellectual force, contrary to all my previously fixed stereotypes of it. Oden, A Change of Heart, pp. 81-82]
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