St Thomas Aquinas

 "David then distributed among all the people, to each man and each woman in the entire multitude of Israel, a loaf of bread, a cut of roast meat, and a raisin cake." 2 Sam 6:19

Few people in the history of the Christian West had more influence on the church and the culture than Thomas Aquinas. Not only did Thomas help the church and other theologians integrate the thought of the Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle, into Christian theology, his ability to think clearly and logically set the tone for generations of theologians who followed him. His final work, the Summa Theologica, completed only a year before his death at forty nine, is still considered one of the classics of Western thought. 

The church is always better when it encourages its theologians to explore the edges and implications of the Gospel in any society. Today, theologians from all over the world, doing theology through the lens of their own cultures, are pushing the church to understand and integrate the insights of every culture when proclaiming the Gospel. When, moreover, the insights of new thinkers begin to influence the thinking and preaching of the older churches of Europe and the Americas everyone benefits.

Encouraging young people to reflect upon and articulate their faith in the digital age and challenging them to find ways to integrate blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and the dozens of other social media into the proclamation of the Gospel might produce another Thomas Aquinas and change the face of the churches in the twenty first century. 

Today, pray for young people studying theology.

Whose thought most influenced your religious understanding and convictions?