Friday, September 4, 2026

0:00It is the 4th of September, 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I'm Dan VanVoris. Wolfheart Pannenberg is not only a great name, but was one of the most important theologians of the last century. And he may have died on this day in 2014. You say it was only 12 years ago. How could we be uncertain? Good question. I was halfway into the research, starting with the German documents that assured me he died today 12 years ago. When a fair number of English obituaries stated with some confidence that no, he died on the 5th. Well, tomorrow is a Saturday and I've got the weekend edition, so I'm sticking with the German sources on this one. And I'll start by noting the American reflection on Pannenberg in Christianity today for its

1:03apt description of the fascinating theologian. His was indeed a strange legacy. Pannenberg was born in Stettin, Germany in 1928. That's Shetschen Polen today. He was baptized in the Lutheran Church, but he didn't grow up in the faith. By his own account, he was fascinated with Nietzsche and considered himself an atheist. An experience at the age of 16 with a strange light set him on the path of becoming a Christian. And this is somewhat ironic in that a man who would place objective historical fact at the center of his theology began his journey with an existential experience. He was drafted into the Nazi army late in the war, but was given a medical exemption. He dove into studies at Berlin, Gottingen, Basel, and Heidelberg. He would study under Karl Bart at Basel, but his theology was not Bartian. This is part of his strange legacy. At once he sounds like an evangelical banging the table about the historicity of the resurrection,

2:08while similarly embracing higher criticism and a doctrine of scripture unlike that often held by those same evangelicals. His doctoral work was on predestination in Duns, Scotus, and his post-doc work centered on the doctrine of analogy and Thomas Aquinas. He began his professional career at the Kirkliga Hochschule Wuppertal in 1958, and by the time of his retirement in the 1990s, would have over 600 publications to his name. He came to fame in the English-speaking world in the 1960s with translations of his work into English, Revelation as History, Jesus God and Man, and Theology and the Kingdom of God. His writings are dense, and as a polymath, he was conversant with theology, science, anthropology, philosophy, and the history of religions. To summarize his thought would be impossible, but perhaps we can state that his theology

3:09was rooted in the resurrection of Jesus as the historical fact that makes sense of all other facts. A primary question throughout his works is, can Christianity be true in a way that isn't private or emotional or mediated through the church? In many obituaries of the man from every corner of the church, a feat that makes him stand out in the modern fractured world, is encyclopedic knowledge in the breadth of the disciplines with which he engaged, were pointed out. Stanley Grendz, the American evangelical Baptist, wrote an entire monograph on the theology of Panenberg. He wrote that Panenberg was, quote, attempting to change the course of contemporary theology, to provide a new direction in understanding in order to combat what he perceived to be a widespread privatization of religious belief in general and of theology in particular. This was not the theology of transcendence and otherness of so many German theologians

4:14in the 20th century. He engaged with many of them, but remained committed to what he called universal history, a kind of theory of everything. He himself would write that, to write a systematic theology as he did, one must first, quote, acquire a systematic account of every other field. More than one commentator has noted that it was perhaps his singular ability to do this that made him one of a kind. He is curious because of his dog had claimed for the objective truth amongst modern theologians and because despite his popularity, he didn't spawn a school like Bartz, Neil Orthodoxy, or Maltmons theology of hope. He retired from the University of Munich in 1994, but continued to write until his death at the age of 85 on this day or maybe tomorrow in 2014. Wolfhardt Pannonberg's legacy is strange, but his insistence on the centrality of the resurrection and its occurrence in time and space make him one worth knowing.

5:23The last word for today comes from the daily electionary in Romans 10 and how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news? But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message? Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word about Christ. But I ask, did they not hear? Of course they did. Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words, to the ends of the world. This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 4th of September, 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. This show is produced by man who wonders where all the wolfhearts have gone. He is Christopher Gillespie, the show is written and read by man who always thought that wolf

6:24names in general just go hard. I'm Dan and Morris, you can catch us here every day and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness and the redemption of all things are true. Everything is going to be okay.