Freud’s Pastor: A Cautionary Tale

Article by: Gregory Thornbury

The Rev. Oscar Pfister was an evangelical Protestant pastor who was a close associate and friend of Sigmund Freud. Although Freud respected Pfister as both a cleric and a scholar, Pfister focused on points of his agreement with Freud’s research and psychoanalysis rather than making much of the faulty presuppositions in Freud’s worldview. Most disturbingly, it seems this “man of God,” whom Freud and his whole family clearly loved, never insisted on the gospel’s demands on Freud’s life. Not only was Freud never converted, he was lulled into thinking there were powerful areas of overlap between his worldview and Pfister’s. The story is a cautionary tale for those who mistake “relational evangelism” and “cultural engagement” for gospel-oriented worldview apologetics predicated on incommensurable presuppositions.

Workshop Leader: Gregory Thornbury

Date: April 4, 2017

Event: The Gospel Coalition 2017 National Conference, Indianapolis, Indiana

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Gregory Alan Thornbury, PhD, is the president of The King’s College in New York City and the author of Recovering Classic Evangelicalism: Applying the Wisdom and Vision of Carl F. H. Henry.