John A. D’Elia’s biography of George Eldon Ladd has rightly been hailed as the definitive look on the American theologian who brought evangelical Christian scholarship to “a place at the table” of the world’s great theologians of his day. Ladd’s books are not only required reading in most seminaries but are also sold in local church bookstores. He was a thinker whose mind attracts all Christians, regardless of the stage of their journey into the Kingdom of God. For once and for all George Eldon Ladd clarified what Jesus meant when he proclaimed that “the Kingdom of God is at hand.”
So powerful and compelling was Ladd’s insight that his theological position has taken shorthand form through out the world – the Kingdom of God is “already/not yet.”
But in A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America, Mr. D’Elia reveals the personal struggles behind the great mind:
“All of [Ladd’s personal problems] – the family issues, the excessive drinking, and the failure to achieve the academic success he craved-did little to alter Ladd’s theological position.” (165)
The biographies of many important men show the opposite – their personal lives playing a pivotal role in shaping ideas and actions. How could George Eldon Ladd’s life acquire so different a character?
The author was generous in answering my questions.
