Influential, Controversial Theologian Clark Pinnock Dies at 73
BY ERIC YOUNG, CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
August 20, 2010|11:57 pm
Theological conservatives and liberals alike this week mourned the loss of influential and controversial theologian Dr. Clark H. Pinnock, who died this past Sunday from a heart attack.
He was 73.
As a teacher at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary back in the 1960s, Pinnock had directly influenced a number of notable Southern Baptist leaders including Paige Patterson, Jerry Vines, Adrian Rogers.
And many of those leaders, in turn, influenced others.
“[T]he gospel I believed came through preachers who were trained by Clark Pinnock,” recalled Dr. Russell D. Moore, dean of the School of Theology and senior vice-president for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “More than that, the nation’s largest evangelical denomination would never have turned back to biblical inerrancy had it not been for a man who would later reject the concept.”
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“He led the short-lived movement toward ‘open theism,’ questioning the historic church’s belief that God knows everything, including the future free decisions of his creatures,” recalled Moore.
“He abandoned his belief that conscious faith in Christ is necessary for salvation, and began to see the Spirit at work in the other world religions. He denounced the concept of everlasting punishment as cruel and contrary to the nature of God. Unhinged from Scripture and tradition, Pinnock became the vanguard of evangelical innovation on doctrine after doctrine after doctrine,” Moore added.
