“Feed my sheep,” Christ commanded Peter, and Peter passed on that command to others: “shepherd the flock of God that is among you … [so that] when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.” The pastor’s duty is serious business, and its stakes mount to the heights of Christian eschatology. But how are pastors to shepherd Christ’s flock today, in a culture where the Church is increasingly marginalized, and even many professing Christians decide to give the Church a miss? When the debates of our age are dominated by experts political, scientific, and academic, what can a humble local pastor say that matters? According to Kevin Vanhoozer and Owen Strachan, the answer lies in a “lost vision” of pastoral ministry: the canonical and historical pattern of pastor as public theologian. Together, they labor to reorient our understanding of the pastorate, giving it a sound theological grounding for speaking and acting for Christ, in His Church, before the watching world. In this episode of Christian Humanist Profiles, David Grubbs speaks with Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer, research professor of systematic theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and co-author of The Pastor as Public Theologian: Reclaiming a Lost Vision (Baker Academic, 2015).

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