For the last year, I have been working through Pope Benedict XVI’s (Joseph Ratzinger) corpus. This is no small feat, given his prolific publishing career which spanned decades prior to ascending to the Roman Pontiff in 2005. He wrote sixty-six books on various topics concerning historical theology, Biblical studies and political philosophy. Really, it is difficult to imagine a topic Benedict didn’t cover. When I read Introduction to Christianity in January of 2025, I was instantly hooked. His writing style was erudite and nuanced, but accessible. With each subsequent chapter, I found myself resonating with his approach to complex theological questions with effortless grace punctuated with scholarly humility. Since then, I’ve read four of his books including Jesus of Nazareth: Volume I & II, Eschatology and Truth and Tolerance. Needless to say, I still have quite a task ahead of me.
Why am I writing about a Catholic Pope? First, I need to contextualize some important personal details about my life. I was a Southern Baptist when I encountered Ratzinger for the first time. In 2021, I dropped out of seminary after attempting to earn a divinity degree. I had great hopes of becoming a professional theologian. Practical considerations overruled, though, and the facts on the ground did lend themselves to being a professional student. In other words, I had family to feed. Investing another decade of my life without meaningful prospects for a suitable income wasn’t realistic. It didn’t help that had little interest in preaching (a cornerstone of Baptist identity), let alone pastoring a congregation. In retrospect, all of these factors should’ve set off alarm bells in my mind that seminary wasn’t a good fit for me. Alas, I was too much of a dreamer.
Throughout my theological education, I was exposed to many schools of thought within theology. Despite such a wide exposure, I kept coming back to the modernist Lutheran theologians like Harnack, Bultmann, and Pannenberg, among others. What I couldn’t find in evangelical Reformed & Baptist theologians so beloved by my peers I instead found in these critical theologians: historical seriousness, scholarly rigor and nuanced interpretation. Naturally, as an evangelical assessing liberal theology, I was primed for a break from my conservative heritage. Babies and drunks are protected by their ignorance as the saying goes. Such was true for me as well. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, so I would never fully embrace a historical-critical posture. At the same time, my intellectual (and spiritual) course forever altered.
What does all of this mean? Well, for one, I didn’t feel as a stranger in a strange land. Ratzinger was familiar territory. He spoke a traditionalist language in a modernist dialect. Most importantly, he engaged critically with historical criticism. That is, he contextualized the appropriate role of critical scholarship in exegetical and theological interpretation. For my spiritual concerns, this was a turning point. While I was a believer of personal conviction—which is to say an evangelical—I understood that facing unpleasant facts was necessary for my spiritual development. Ratzinger was a product of theological schools which most directly confronted my naiveté and ignorance. I trusted his guidance even when I disagreed with his conclusions.
Over the next few weeks I will examine Ratzinger’s Christology from his Jesus of Nazareth series. I am excited to explore this topic in a weekly series focusing on the mission, person and nature of Jesus. The reader may disagree, but I will respond in the way Ratzinger does in the Forward: “Everyone is free to disagree, then, to contradict me. I would only ask my readers for that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding.” (xxvi)
