MAP-MAKING
1. DANGER! THEOLOGIAN AT WORK
What These Chapters Are Meant to Do
A favorite picture book for three-year-olds, a Bunny, looks at life from a rabbit’s point of view. On that basis, this book could well be called I Am a Theologian. Such a title would sound conceited, elitist, and stuffy to the last degree, and would become a lead balloon, sinking the book and its author straight into oblivion. Yet, as a declaration of commitment rather than a claim to competence, it would not be wholly unfit. My goal is to pinpoint some problems which a theologian cannot help but see, and fulfill in relation to them, as best I can, the theologian’s proper and distinctive role.
What is that? Well, what is theology? (Always begin at the beginning!) Theology is one of those terms (there are not too many of them) whose meaning is clear from their derivation. Theology comes from two Greek words, theos (God) and logos (discourse, speech, line of argument), and means simply God-talk—or, more fully, thoughts about God expressed in statements about God. God-thoughts are only right when they square with God’s own thoughts about himself; theology comes good only when we let God’s revealed truth—that is, Bible teaching—penetrate our minds. So theology is an exercise of listening before it is one of talking. It is the attempt to hear what Westminster Confession I.x calls “the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture” and then to apply what Scripture says to correct and direct our lives. We bring our doubts and questions to the Bible’s teaching for resolution, and we allow God in and through that same teaching to question us about the way we think and live. The name of theologian is given to those who help with this process.
There is a sense in which every Christian is a theologian. Simply by speaking of God, whatever you say, you become a theologian, just as by hitting the keys you become a pianist, whatever it sounds like. (My twenty-three-month-old grandson is fulfilling the role of pianist even as I write.) The question then is whether you are good or bad at what you are doing. But as in secular speech the word pianist is normally kept for competent performers, so in Christian speech the word theologian is kept for those who in some sense specialize in the study of God’s truth.
What use are such people? Is there a particular job that we should look to them to do for us? Yes, there is. By the lake in a resort I know stands a building grandly labelled “Environmental Control Center.” It is the sewage plant, there to ensure that nothing fouls the water; its staff is comprised of water engineers and sewage specialists. Think of theologians as the church’s sewage specialists. Their role is to detect and eliminate intellectual pollution, and to ensure, so far as man can, that God’s life-giving truth flows pure and unpoisoned into Christian hearts. Their calling obliges them to act as the church’s water engineers, seeking by their preaching, teaching, and biblical exposition to make the flow of truth strong and steady; but it is particularly as disposers of spiritual sewage that I want to portray them. They are to test the water and filter out anything they find that confuses minds, corrupts judgments, and distorts the way that Christians view their own lives. If they see Christians astray, they must haul them back on track; if they see them dithering, they must give them certainty; if they find them confused, they must straighten them out. That is why this book might be called I Am a Theologian, for this is precisely what I am attempting to do.
The chapters that follow deal with some crucial questions about which Christians often feel hesitant and uncertain. They all have a directly personal twist. What is God up to in his world, bewildering and agonizing as it so often proves to be? Who is entitled to claim his acquaintance? What will holiness require of me? How will God guide me? Will he guide me at all? Is there such a thing as divine healing? What should I expect from God when I am sick, or when I feel broken into little pieces? How should I react to the present condition of the church? These are some of the questions on which I add my mite to the treasury of Christian discussion. They are important questions which often receive wrong answers, and I want to say what I can about them.
MAP-MAKING
What should a theologian do when facing questions of this sort? Picture it thus: he should make a map of each problematical life-situation, with all the human factors involved, and then superimpose all the relevant biblical teachings and Bible-based considerations. The scale of the map will need to be fairly large. It is a map to be used when walking crosscountry so correctness of detail is important.
The Christian life is cross-country travel all the way, with hedges and ditches, ups and downs, rough places and smooth places, deserts and swamps. There are storms and fogs periodically punctuating the sunshine. The purpose of the map is to enable the walker to find his way. With a good map he will recognize the terrain around him, relate the features he observes to the larger landscape, and see at each stage where he should go. Theology’s proper goal is to equip the disciples of Jesus Christ for obedience. The maps theologians draw are meant, not simply to be possessed as so much intellectual wealth, but rather to be used for the believer’s route-finding in his personal pilgrimage of following his Lord.
Technicalities (sometimes unavoidable in theology, as in any field of scientific study) will be pursued only for the sake of simplicity. Simplicity of principle, once it is achieved, makes for straightforwardness of practice. The best theological maps are clear and have these seven basic qualities.
First, they are accurate in their presentation of material, both human and biblical. Nothing can compensate for failure here.
Second, they are God-centered, recognizing divine sovereignty at the heart of everything and showing God’s control of problematical events, both actual and imaginable.
Third, they are doxological, giving God glory for his glorious achievements in creation, providence, and grace, and encouraging a spirit of joyous, trustful worship and adoration in all circumstances.
Fourth, they are future-oriented, for Christianity is a religion of hope. Often the only sense theology can make of present trends, conditions, and behavior patterns, as they both mark society and touch individuals, is to diagnose them as fruits of sin and hold forth the promise that God will one day wipe them out and unveil something better in their place.
Fifth, they are Christ-related in two ways. On the one hand, they proclaim the centrality of Jesus our mediator, prophet, priest, and king, in all God’s present dealings with, and future plans for, the human race. On the other hand, they reformulate our notional perplexities by turning them into practical issues of faithfully following the Savior whom we love along the path of self-denial and cross-bearing, according to his own explicit call (see Luke 9:23). They show us how to walk patiently with him through experiences that defeat our minds and feel like death into the experienced reality of personal internal resurrection. This is the biblical way to live the Christian life, and good theological maps lead us right into it.
Sixth, such maps are church-centered. The New Testament presents the church as central in God’s plan. Christians are meant to journey through life not in isolation but in company with fellow-believers, supporting them and being supported by them.
Seventh, good theological maps are freedom-focused. They are tuned in to the decision-making processes of authentically Christian men and women: that is, people who know themselves to be free from the law as a system of salvation, yet desire to live by it, first out of love for their Lord, who wills this; second out of love for the law itself, which now delights them with its vision of righteousness; and third out of self-love, since they know that there is no real happiness for them, either here or hereafter, without holiness.
Good theology constantly calls for deliberate, responsible decisions about how we are going to live, and it never forgets that Christian decisions are commitments to action on principle (not out of mindless conformity), undertaken in freedom (not from external pressure or bullying), and motivated primarily by love of God and of justice (not by fear). Good theology thus molds Christian character, neither demeaning nor diminishing us but rather enhancing our God-given dignity.
There is no denying that many theological treatments of problem areas fail to measure up to these criteria. Authoritarianism within the church, secularism from outside, and a restless Athenian cast of mind in universities and seminaries, have constantly combined to contaminate theology, both past and present. But that need not concern us now. I have written this chapter only so that you will know the standards to which I am trying to work. I may well fail; you shall be the judge of that. But if I do, please remember that, like the pianist whom the wild Westerners in a certain famous cartoon planned to shoot, I have done my best. Now let us move on.