Interview with Kim Crutchfield ... Part Two

Bruce Metzger

This is the second installment of a 3-part interview with Dr. Kim Crutchfield, pastor of Taipei International Church.  (The first installment can be read here).

Raised in a Pentecostal home in the United States, but now a United Methodist minister in Taiwan, Kim has covered a lot of terrain --- literally and figuratively.

Today, we ask him about his seminary years at Princeton, particularly studying under Bruce Metzger (pictured on the right;  Dr. and Mrs. Crutchfield are pictured in the first installment).

JR:  Studying under the late biblical scholar and textual critic Bruce Metzger at Princeton Seminary had to be a delight.  Tell us about that experience.

KC:  I entered Princeton Theological Seminary's Master of Divinity program in the winter of 1984.  I had earned a Masters in Theological Studies in Ethics from Columbia Theological Seminary in 1982.  My transfer credits allowed me the elbowroom to choose many elective courses during my MDiv program at Princeton.  I selected the professors under whom I wished to study.

The last course Bruce Metzger taught before his retirement was the Book of Revelation.  He took the approach he later shared in his 1999 book Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation.  I elected to take the Book of Revelation as a Bible course, primarily because I wished to sit at the feet of one of the foremost textual critics in the world.

Dr. Metzger delivered his lectures with great joy, brimming with calm insight.  Though not animated, he was never boring.  He was brilliant.  I soaked it all in.

The materials Dr. Metzger introduced to the class as background reading expanded my viewpoint on apocalyptic materials exponentially.  My Pentecostal bible college where I did my undergraduate studies trained me only in the Dispensationalist interpretation, an approach that sought to harmonize the prophecies of Daniel with the book of Revelation.  Hal Lindsey's Late Great Plant Earth was popular at the time of my undergraduate days.  Dr. Metzger's approach opened a new world of interpretation to me.

Dr. Metzger was a true gentleman, sheathing his vast knowledge in humility becoming to a great scholar.  He held the Bible in high esteem and brought a wealth of knowledge to the class.  I am grateful for the privilege to have studied under Dr. Bruce M. Metzger.

James Loder

Another professor that affected my life at Princeton Theological Seminary was Dr. James Loder.  He had written The Transforming Moment a few years before I entered Princeton.

Dr. Loder helped me claim my Pentecostal heritage during a time in which I was sorely tempted to abandon it.  The abuses to which I had witnessed and had been subjected almost led me to toss out the baby with the bathwater.  Dr. Loder's deep appreciation for Christian experience and the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life helped me to integrate the mind and the heart.

My Pentecostal colleagues had been distrustful of too many questions and suspicious of the intellect.  They counseled against too much head knowledge as dangerous to the faith.  Some of my Pentecostal friends disparaged seminaries (which they jokingly called "Cemeteries") as factories of unbelief and head knowledge.  I did not experience Princeton Theological Seminary that way.

Dr. Loder modeled intellectual acumen combined with a heart of love and devotion.  His lectures were electrifying.  He preached and taught through every class.  I hated when the lecture ended and class would dismiss.

NEXT SATURDAY:  Kim and Stephanie's years in Earl Paulk's Chapel Hill Harvester Church.  Read it here.