12.9.14

I have little interest, generally, in whether First Things is a magazine that is supportive of, or hostile to, those Protestants who might read it. It's a magazine founded by a Catholic and run by Catholics (for the most part), and they're certainly welcome to feature or ignore what they want. But this memorial of Wolfheart Pannenburg is an example of doing things wrongly: you could read the article with some attention and miss out on the fact he's Lutheran and thus (at least somewhat) out of step with Catholicism. You'd miss it because there's one scant mention of his being Lutheran and a substantial paragraph devoted to how Catholics did and might now read him. The astute reader will also note that he's continually referred to as a "Christian" thinker, which seems less a way of affirming his general theological interests, and more of a way of not having to use the term 'Lutheran' too much.

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