Calvin R. Schoonhoven

Calvin R. Schoonhoven was born in Racine, Wisconsin, November 22, 1931. He has taught at Fuller Theological Seminary most of his adult life. He is author of The Wrath of Heaven (W.B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1966) which was a study of the "Heaven" concept in the New Testament as it related to the apocalyptic and pseudepigraphic literature of the first and second century. He lives in Memphis.

A fellow Christian theologian writes about Cal Schoonhoven:

"It has been one of the greatest privileges of my life to know Dr. Calvin Schoonhoven. When I met him he was a retired seminary professor in New Testament hermeneutics. He studied and taught at Fuller Theological Seminary in California. Not only that, he also studied with some of the greatest theologians of the 20th century in Switzerland and Germany, Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, receiving his Th.D. from them at the Basil Theological Seminary in Switzerland. In the time that I had the privilege to know him he allowed me to copy and read some of his published and unpublished works. I never expected I would come face to face with such an intellectual luminary. I came to understand his deep erudition and love of learning.

"Perhaps Dr. Schoonhoven's prophetic vision of a world ruled by compassionate reason, enlightened thinking and free and open inquiry will come to pass and we will "move to the measure of his thought." Perhaps the day will come when humans can tame their passions and at last leave behind the devils of religious prejudice and theocratic violence, perhaps not. But the world will know that once there walked a man whose integrity, love of learning and courage graced us all, and quickened our minds and hearts with his kind and gentle pleading for the rule of reason--that once, the world had a true hero.

"I've met one the greatest thinkers and kindest and noblest human beings on earth. If more Christians were like this atheist, if there were more Schoonhovens and fewer Fundamentalists, the world would be a better place."

-- A Biblical theologian who must remain anonymous