Review: Becoming a Pastor Theologian: New Possibilities for Church Leadership

Becoming a Pastor Theologian: New Possibilities for Church Leadership by Todd Wilson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I requested for a review of this book because I had read "The Pastor as Public Theologian" (Eds. Vanhoozer & Strachan). As a final year seminary student, this title appealed to me, for it is something I believe in passionately.

As indicated by the title, this book is targeted at pastors who have already been convinced that being pastor-theologians is something that they want to strive toward, and the many chapters essentially provide the characteristics and the historical examples of what that looks like.

The challenge with books that are made up of compilations by various scholars is putting together a seamless flow of thought, which I'd imagine that the editors have attempted to do. I felt that because of the sake of brevity, many of the articles from the contributing theologians were so dense and rich that I had difficulty absorbing the ideas and substantives.

For me, the mark of a 5 star book would be the communication of complex ideas in a manner that the reader can easily comprehend, be inspired by, and apply. And unfortunately, I do not feel that this book meets this criteria.

I received this book from IVP Academic for the purposes of providing an unbiased review. All views are my own.

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