Agree in every respect with your comments here. The pastor-theologian-as-academic-theologian is the model I’m least enthusiastic about.

Gerald

I envision a “‘tweener” of sorts: someone who resides in between these three poles, and offers something to each in measure.

As a pastor, there’s no way I could fulfill what you describe here:

fully abreast of the academic discussions, and the bulk of his writing consists of articles in academic journals and scholarly monographs related to ongoing academic debates. His intellectual center is the academy, not the local church. And most significantly, like academic theologians in the academy, the pastor-as-academic-theologian subjects his theological project to the demands and presuppositions of methodological agnosticism. He writes not as a pastor or a Christian, but as a disinterested scholar.

Furthermore, there’s not much there that I would want to fulfill. If I had the time/energy to stay “fully abreast” of academic discussions, that might be one thing. The rest, not so much.

Anyone whose intellectual center is not in the local church ought not be serving as a pastor. Period. Which isn’t to say that someone cannot engage both the local church and the academy– and many do this effectively; I’m thinking of Philip Graham Ryken as an example– but the essence of the calling as pastor (even a pastor-theologian) is his ministry in the context of the local church.

Furthermore, I’ve never met any pastor OR academic who was a “disinterested scholar”. I’m not sure that methodological agnosticism is possible for an evangelical academic; certainly I’m skeptical about an evangelical pastor-theologian.

As I said, my sense is that you’re already headed where my mind is naturally going, given that you’ve said that this model is insufficient for SAET. Still, I thought I would offer a couple of queries for clarification.