Why Theology?

llwilmoth

Was recently looking through some old pieces, and came across this one. Definitely an oldie, but thought I might as well post it.

Let me offer a few words, not on why I’m a Christian, but on why I bother with Christian theology. Why spend as many years as I have on its study? It’s a fair question, and deserves as thoughtful an answer as I can muster. The following, then, are some of the reasons that keep resurfacing as I continue to think through this little exercise in self-knowledge.

Here’s what stands out as basic. (1) I must just love it. I can’t get beneath this. Love is bedrock. Let me try, then, and count the ways.

(1a) I love the questions theology asks. As I learned from Nicholas Lash, and Lash from Thomas before him, nothing’s off limits for theology because its remit is nothing less than God and all creation’s origin, life, and destiny in God. The scope is staggering.

(1b) I love how theology asks its question, or perhaps better said, the modes of reflection theology invites. Do you admire the analytic rigor of philosophy? Do you value the raising of historical consciousness afforded by the study of the past? Could you see yourself benefiting from the broadening of imagination and sympathy invited by the close readings of a vast body of literature both ancient and global in provenance? Theology’s got all these bases covered in spades, and then some.

(1c) I love theology’s aims. I’ve said it before somewhere, and I don’t mind reiterating the point here. Theology aims at re-humanizing its students. That’s my shorthand way of saying theology disciplines our habits of mind by exposing our idols, calling out our faithlessness, and converting our loves, so we can reclaim our vocations as creatures and priests before God, members and disciples within the church, and witnesses and neighbors to the nations.

The above loves have impressed upon me what good the thoughtful and soulful study of theology can do. They’ve convinced me that theology trades in knowledge worth sharing. Both the current direction and quality of my own life owe more to my study of theology than to any other intellectual pursuit. And I’m sure other people can profit every bit as much as I have from greater exposure to theological inquiry. So in addition to just loving this stuff, (2) I also must value sharing common goods, and for that reason, theology’s more than repaid my investment of time.

That’s the best I can do right now in terms of searching out and testing what I hope have been my basic motivations these many years.

Your Next Podcast Subscription

llwilmoth

Fresh for its third season, the North American Lutheran Seminary’s podcast Cardigan & Collar is debuting a new video format. They’re calling this season’s theme Generous Confessionalism. It’s worth a listen, and a watch. The phrase is a welcome one. Let’s see what use can be made of it.

Episode 2 is also already out and available HERE.

Is he wrong? An Easter Question

llwilmoth

George Lindbeck’s willing to say it:

What the good God is doing to the church, it seems to me, is destroying us bit by bit. And I think that God insists God wants us to be united. And destroying each denomination’s identity is precisely the way in which eventually we’ll have to be united.

from Postliberal Theology and the Church Catholic (Baker Academic, 2012), 118.

At least three arguable claims here, it seems to me.

  1. the church is being destroyed
  2. by God
  3. on account of church division

The first claim would be the easiest to develop given the growing literature on the current decline of the contemporary Western church. For instance, most recently, HERE.

The third claim, to my mind, would be the weakest. Or maybe I should say, the sort of sociological analyses advancing the first claim seem to point the finger elsewhere, or at least offer a more multifactor explanation. I certainly have my share of ecumenical sympathies, but I’m doubtful church division can bear this weight alone.

I’d venture to say division troubles theologians more than the typical lapsed churchgoer. The latter would conceivably mention church scandal among their reasons for disaffiliation, but I’d suspect institutional division wouldn’t be the first scandal in their minds. Theologians might reply it’s a further measure of the severity of the scandal of division that our consciences have dulled to its offense, but that could also just tell us decline is overdetermined. There’s plenty more sufficient reasons to pick from out there.

The second claim, though, that God is behind the church’s decline, nonetheless remains a genuinely theological proposal in what’s too often merely a sociological conversation. Is our current trajectory (what would you call the opposite of a Great Awakening?) just a historical trend that ebbs and flows like any other tide, and therefore a big nothing burger, even if temporarily disappointing, or is it an act of God? Is God telling us something? Judging us? 

As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” Ro 8.36

But if that’s the case, to what new life may we hope to be raised? Lord, into your hands I commit my spirit.