Nothing Held in Reserve: Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD

Nothing Held in Reserve

Professor James Atkinson was one of the preeminent interpreters of Martin Luther in the last century. He was also a dear friend with whom I shared many adventures throughout the 1980s and 1990s. To remember James solely as a distinguished scholar, however, would be to remember only part of the man. His learning was immense, but so too were his generosity, hospitality, curiosity, and capacity for friendship.

I first met James at a Luther conference in 1982. He was the keynote speaker; I was merely delivering a short paper. There was no particular reason why he should have taken notice of me. Yet, after I had finished, he immediately engaged me in conversation. Within ten minutes, I had accepted his invitation to visit him at his home near Sheffield two weeks later.

That was James.

In the intervening fortnight, I attempted to discover everything I could about him. I learned of his time at St John’s College, Durham; his MLitt under the supervision of Michael Ramsey; and his doctorate, magna cum laude, from the University of Münster, undertaken after he had taught himself German. I read about his translations of Luther’s writings and his friendships with such notable figures as F. F. Bruce and J. I. Packer. He became Professor of Biblical Studies at Sheffield in 1967. The department was then threatened with closure, but he helped rebuild it, enlarge its staff, and renew its intellectual life. The more I learned, the more formidable he appeared.

I was also somewhat apprehensive. My own theological inclinations were decidedly Anglo-Catholic, while James’s convictions were profoundly Evangelical. I wondered whether the distance between those traditions might prove difficult to cross. Perhaps I anticipated a weekend of polite but guarded theological conversation in which each of us would carefully avoid the subjects most likely to reveal our differences. What I discovered, however, was that James’s Evangelicalism was neither narrow nor sectarian. He understood Luther as a prophet to the Church Catholic—a reformer whose protest arose not from contempt for the Church, but from a longing for its renewal.

I need not have worried.

The weekend we spent together—the first of many—was wonderful. James possessed that rare ability to hold strong convictions without using them as barriers against other people. He was interested not merely in whether one agreed with him, but in whether one had thought seriously, read carefully, and remained open to the truth. Our differences became the material of conversation rather than the cause of separation. Theology, in his company, was neither an intellectual contest nor a means of establishing superiority. It was a shared search undertaken among friends.

In due course, James invited me to become a Senior Research Fellow at his Centre for Reformation Studies, connected with the University of Sheffield. Still later, he asked me to deliver the Centre’s annual University Lecture. These were generous acts of professional confidence for which I remain grateful. Yet the formal appointments and lectures tell only a small part of the story.

Between those engagements were visits in Sheffield, excursions through the Peak District, meetings in Durham, and occasional reunions in Chicago, where his daughter lived. There were meals, walks, stories, laughter, and conversations that moved effortlessly between Luther, the Church, the academy, and the ordinary absurdities of life. James made scholarship seem inseparable from friendship. Ideas mattered because people mattered, and learning found its proper purpose when it was shared. His hospitality was not something separate from his scholarship; it was one of the forms his scholarship took.

James died in 2011 at the age of ninety-seven. Remarkably, despite increasing blindness, he was still working and still writing. His intellectual life had never become a monument to past achievement. It remained active, searching, and unfinished. Even in advanced age, he continued to read, question, and contribute.

Of anyone I have ever known, James was the most intellectually generous. Some scholars protect their learning as though knowledge diminished when shared. James understood precisely the opposite. He gave his knowledge freely, encouraged younger scholars, welcomed disagreement, and opened doors for others without calculating what advantage might return to him.

Nothing was held in reserve.

All was offered.

Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD