Quotes by Thomas C. Oden

About Thomas C. Oden:

Thomas Clark Oden is an American United Methodist theologian and religious author. He was Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology and Ethics at Drew University in New Jersey from 1980 until his retirement in 2004. He is currently faculty emeritus. Oden has a B.A. degree from the University of Oklahoma (1953), a B.D from Southern Methodist University (1956), and earned his M.A. (1958) and Ph.D. from Yale University (1960). He was born in Altus, Oklahoma, the son of an attorney and music teacher. He married Edrita Pokorny on August 10, 1952. They had three children: Thomas, Edward, and Laura.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The moment of confession is not merely when one hears another pronounce the words: God forgives you, or 'in God's name I absolve you.' Rather it is that point at which the sinner unfeignedly experiences himself as truly judged and pardoned by God.

Thomas C. Oden

Because cultures and languages are constantly changing and because the apostolic testimony must be attested in ever-new circumstances, it is a necessary feature of the apostolic tradition that it both guard the original testimony and make it understa...

Thomas C. Oden

Sins of ignorance or infirmity are to be admonished in a different way than intentional sins of malice of intention. The assurance of forgiveness is not to be offered carelessly by those whose conscience is seared, but to penitents who come contritel...

Thomas C. Oden

Sins that have been completely absolved on one occasion sometimes on other occasions cannot be completely forgotten or set aside. They may continue to have a ripple effect. But it is comforting to realize that they are no longer remembered by God, ev...

Thomas C. Oden

Protestants at one time were confident that their free form of confession was a vast improvement upon Catholic private confession to a priest because it is voluntary, demystified, and not routinized. But amid the acids of modernity it has volunteered...

Thomas C. Oden

A delicate balance is required: keep the penitent tautly close to the point of recognizing sin, and then allow the relief of that pressure to flow through forgiveness. Confession increases this tautness, only to clear the path for release.

Thomas C. Oden

Every experienced pastor knows that what the penitent heart says about itself is much more consequential than well-made truthful sentences that shout from the outside of the inner voice of conscience. No element of confession is more crucial than the...

Thomas C. Oden

The deeper irony is that the evidence of sin that are always found in and around the body of Christ may become indirect intimations of its holiness. It could not be a holy church if it had clean hands, as if severed from its task of saving sinners an...

Thomas C. Oden

The confessor can nullify the exquisitely seasonable moment of confession by talking instead of listening. When he sees pedagogy and advice as more important than simple listening, he diverts the stream of confession.

Thomas C. Oden

One trains the eye of confession most closely on what is hurting. If sin is present it will be aching. Confession begins where the raw anguish of conscience is rubbing against the primordial awareness of God's holiness.

Thomas C. Oden

Neurotic guilt scans the horizons of the past relentlessly seeking out the most deplorable, hideous, and culpable acts which are least consistent with one's self image. This process is similar to the infinite passion of intensified anxiety for seekin...

Thomas C. Oden

The Christ event did not in that sense CHANGE the will of God, but rather it more clearly expressed God's eternal will toward the whole of history.

Thomas C. Oden

The heart of the difference between cheap-grace doctrines of guilt-free existence and the Christian gospel is this: Modern chauvinism desperately avoids the message of guilt by treating it as a regrettable symptom. Christianity listens to the message...

Thomas C. Oden

While the memory of guilt is far from pleasant (like 'wormwood and gall'), it has the curative intent of restoring us into an awareness of the constancy of God's love, new every morning. God's mercy is not spent even with our worst misdeeds.

Thomas C. Oden

Christian consciousness experiences itself in a curious sense as LIBERATED TO FAIL, without intolerable damage to self-esteem and without any reduction of moral seriousness. We are free to be inadequate, free to foul things up, and yet affirm ourselv...

Thomas C. Oden

In this sense every serious choice has a tragicomic dimension. For it is impossible to be a human being without choosing, and it is impossible to choose without value denials, and it is impossible to deny values without guilt. That is a very simple t...

Thomas C. Oden

To the extent that we are trapped by the overvaluing, idealizing tendency, we are not free fully to celebrate the limited but real goods of creation. Idolatry by definition is not an accurate assessment of creaturely goods, but an overvaluing of them...

Thomas C. Oden

There is a quality of lightness, easiness, and in some sense blatant unseriousness that pervades Classical Christianity's dialogue with modernity. The Christian intellect has no reason to be intimidated in the presence of later-stage modernity. Chris...

Thomas C. Oden

Grace works ahead of us to draw us toward faith, to begin its work in us. Even the first fragile intuition of conviction of sin, the first intimation of our need of God, is the work of preparing, prevening grace, which draws us gradually toward wishi...

Thomas C. Oden

The church that weds itself to modernity is already a widow within postmodernity.

Thomas C. Oden

Author Bio

  • NameThomas C. Oden
  • DescriptionAmerican theologian
  • BornOctober 21, 1931
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionTheologian