Jaroslav Pelikan

Just recently I ended up acquiring the book The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, Volume 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) which sounds like it should be an interesting read.

Reading from some of my typical soruces - I read far too many blogs, forums & news sites - I discovered that the author of this book had passed away just one week ago. In a profile of this man, who was a professor at Yale for much of his life, I stumbled across the following blurb:

Could Pelikan have accomplished what he has done if he had stayed in Christian institutions? Most churches or seminaries, Pelikan reflects, remain fundamentally ambiguous about scholarship. Many are eager to use it when it reinforces their settled positions, but they become skittish when it moves into uncharted areas. "You have to give the church what it needs, not what it wants. And in order to do that you may have to leave its payroll. It hurts me to say this because I want to be part of a church where that doesn't have to be said. But show me one where it is not true."