The Christian Tradition 3 by Jaroslav Pelikan

But he could not yet manage a pen or pencil. He had, his mother's memoirs recorded, taught himself to read and now wanted to write. Pelikan will tell you, for instance, about the problem he created for his parents, Anna and Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, in the summer of 1926, when he was two-and-a-half-years old, growing up in Akron, Ohio. To understand what you see, you have to keep in mind Pelikan's singular commitment to his vocation.Įven when Pelikan talks about his early life, the stories and anecdotes all relate to his preparation for the tasks of a scholar. He has chronicled the history of Christian doctrine (in a recently completed five-volume work) on a scale no one has attempted in the twentieth century. None of these things provide the key to Jaroslav Pelikan, for he is nothing more nor less than what he is advertised to be-a scholar and teacher of church history. He is congenial, and as he talks he makes occasional eye contact with his interviewers, but just as often peers at the ceiling and the book shelves around him as he swivels and rocks back and forth in his desk chair. He wears standard-issue academic garb: a gray flannel jacket with a charcoal suede vest, and rubber-and-leather boots from L. It is just as hard to tell much about the Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from the way he looks. Two computers-one a laptop on his desk-are the only obvious concessions to modernity. But telltale signs of hobbies or outside interests (like an old clarinet or a tennis racket in the corner) are absent.

On the wall is a painting of a pelican, and around the edges of the room are an old briefcase, cardboard boxes, and piles of books laid in convenient stacks. In his old, high-ceilinged office, an open semicircular arrangement of chairs suggests friendliness and availability to students. The office of Jaroslav Pelikan holds few clues to explain what has made him what he is: perhaps the foremost living student of church history. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, serving as the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in American History and Ethics. This year, Noll was also honored by the John W. In 1990, historian Mark Noll of Wheaton College wrote a brief profile of Pelikan for Christianity Today. The $1 million award focuses on those academic disciplines not covered by the Nobel prizes and have only been awarded since 2003. Kluge Prize in the Human Sciences to Yale University historian Jaroslav Pelikan (along with French philosopher Paul Ricoeur). The Library of Congress has awarded its annual John W.

The Christian Tradition 3 by Jaroslav Pelikan