I am bored, creatively avoiding real work - again, and I am too tired to give much thought to, well, much at all. So I thought I would riff on the list thing that has been shooting around over the past month. Past lists are scholars who could blog (like this one) at Nick’s and Bryan’s blogs. Halden offered the latest through experiment on the pre-modern theologian you would study if you had to (mine was Athanasius or Chrysostom - got to give a nod to Gregory of Nyssa and the other two Cappadocians though). So here is my riff on the theme in the key of bored flat:
- H. Richard Niebuhr
- Peter Berger
- Rodney Stark
- Simone Weil
- Calvin O. Schrag
- John Dewey
- George Marsden
- Robert Wuthnow
- Mary Douglas
- Marshall McLuhan
Yep. That’s the kind of stuff that has floated in my head over the past 8 years or so. I am clearly more interested in religious behavior than doctrinal theology. I also do not think one should bother with doing theology unless in conversation with biblical scholarship. If I could I would pair it (in no order) with biblical theologians as well. Childs, Brueggeman, Von Rad, LT Johnson, Brown, Fitzmeyer, Schnackenburg, Dunn, Mays, Fretheim. I did have a few of my professors and mentors such as Peter Macky and Bob Van Dale from Westminster; and Diogenes Allen and James Loder from Princeton. But that was too easy so I scratched it.
Hmmm… I see too many white guys there. Not enough women or people of color. I will need to change that some day. Maybe give Schussler-Fiorenza, Cornel West, and Kristeva some props too?
Oh yeah, if any of those above who are still among the living have blogs, please let me know. 
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I'll have to check out Niebuhr. I was watching that interview with Cone and he was raving about one of the brothers and whichever one it was sounded really interesting.
Bryan
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H. Richard is the more sociological and Reinhold is more of the pragmatist philosopher of the two. Richard wrote The Social Sources of Denominationalism, Christ and Culture, and The Meaning of Revelation - three of my favorite books that demand a re-read periodically!
Stark is big time legit. I forget who said it, but he was once referred to as the Max Weber of the 20th century - mostly in part because of his economic theory. He is provocative, for instance, in claims that Europe was never really Christianized in the first place... I would recommend going here to listen to three of his lectures as an introit. http://uc.princeton.edu/main/index.php?searchwo...
Brilliant and challenging sociologist.
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I'm a big fan of Stark but I was wondering something. Is he legit? By that I mean does he actually have some real cred. and are his books taken seriously and his scholarship solid, or is he kind of off doing his own thing and nobody's paying attention. I've just wondered whether it'd be wise for me to recommend his books to others but I don't want to do that if he is easily getting proved wrong or dismissed by other scholars.
Thanks,
Bryan
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