We’re all theologians. The question is whether or not we are going to be good or bad theologians. In other words as Christians we are adopted into the life of God through the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ; we find our very being as human in the human being that Jesus became for us. In this mediation of life, by virtue of this mediation, we as Christians are those who desire to know God; to be growing into the life we are hidden in in Christ’s (Col. 3.2-3). A theologian is someone who “studies God”; a theologian is another word for a disciple of Jesus Christ.

But most Christians, especially those in my sub-culture in the North American evangelical low churches, are not encouraged to think this way; indeed most of the pastors in this tradition are not encouraged to think this way while in seminary. This is a travesty that the evangelical church has created and now must live with; there is a way out. People, pastors can begin educating themselves, and in so doing the spillover will be to raise the bar for those they are responsible for as pastors. I am not entirely sure what pastors think they are doing in the ministry; what do they think their job is? Is it to facilitate fellowship, and birth growing disciples? I think so. But so often this is simply affirmed and asserted in the abstract. Personally I have had a great emptiness as an evangelical Christian; I have not been encouraged to learn to think theologically, or even to study the Bible with depth as an evangelical Christian in evangelical churches. Instead I have been impressed with the idea that the real stuff of pastoral/churchly ministry is to minister to the needs of people in the church in practical ways. But I have often wondered what in the world difference there is between this, and what we see taking place in the various profane charitable organizations we see doing the very same thing for people. I don’t see how evangelical churches, in the main, differentiate themselves from the world except for tagging their various church programs, and even their pulpit ministries, with Bible verses and Christianese sounding language. I rarely if ever see an principial basis for the ministry being done by evangelical churches; I rarely if ever see an principial Christ-centrism shaping and grounding the work of the local church; and I mean at a methodological/theological level. I see lots of pietism doing work of the ministry that it really cannot bear, since this sort of pietism is typically grounded in the energies and experiences of the people rather than grounded in the resurrection power of Jesus Christ.

I digress a bit, but not too much. There is a relationship between people not being encouraged to be theologians in all aspects of their lives, and the weakness present in the many so called evangelical churches in North America and elsewhere. On this note I wanted to quote Karl Barth on the importance of Christians understanding themselves to be theologians; being people who study God, and are growing in that knowledge in such a way that it extends in every sphere of life they inhabit. Barth writes:

How disastrously the Church must misunderstand itself if, on whatever pretext, it can dream of being able to undertake and achieve anything serious in what are undoubtedly the important fields of liturgical reform or social work or Christian education or the ordering of its relation to state and society or ecumenical understanding, without at the same time doing what is necessary and possible with reference to the obvious centre of its life, as though it were self-evident, as though we could confidently count on it, that evangelium pure docetur et recte administrantur sacramenta [sacraments are rightly administered]! as though we could confidently leave this to God and in the meantime busy ourselves with the periphery of the Church circle, which has perhaps been rotating for long enough around a false centre! as though we could put ourselves in God’s hands without a care in the world for what happens at this decisive point! Again, how disastrously the church must misunderstand itself if it can imagine that theology is the business of a few theoreticians who are specially appointed for the purpose, to whom the rest, as hearty practical men, may sometimes listen with half an ear, though for their own part they boast of living “quite untheologically” for the demands of the day (“love”). As though these practical men were not continually preaching and speaking and writing, and were not genuinely questioned as to the rightness of their activity in this regard! As though there were anything more practical than giving this question its head, which means doing the work of theology and dogmatics! Again, how disastrously the Church must misunderstand itself if it can imagine that theological reflection is a matter for quiet situations and periods that suit and invite contemplation, a kind of peace-time luxury for which we are not only permitted but even commanded to find no time should things become really serious and exciting! As though there could be any more urgent task for a Church under assault from without than that of consolidating itself within, which means doing theological work! As though the venture of proclamation did not mean that the Church permanently finds itself in an emergency! Let there be no mistake. Because of these distorted ideas about theology, and dogmatics in particular, there arises and persists in the life of the Church a lasting and growing deficit for which we cannot expect those particularly active in this function to supply the needed balance. The whole Church must seriously want a serious theology if it is to have a serious theology.[1]

Does this resonate with you; does it make sense to you?! What is the business of the church about, but to be pressing people to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ? Jesus and the Apostle Paul seemed to think that this would happen through the supplication of the giving of pastors and teachers of the church (Eph. 4; John 14–16). It is very hard for me to stomach church body life when that body life is not actively being nourished on the living reality of God in Jesus Christ. This living reality is borne witness to through the proper explication of Holy Scripture, which involves the work of Dogmatic theology; Dogmatic theology itself being the organic regulative work of the church to ensure it is constantly operating in a mode of what Thomas Torrance has called repentant thinking. In other words, the church is a learning church; if this is not the practical stuff of the church, then do-tell what kind of ministry will the church ever be involved in but of the pietist sort. Yes, we can have churches filled with people feeling good about themselves, feeling like they are involved in the ministry, but if they are not being challenged to grow into the grace and knowledge of God in Jesus Christ, if they are not being challenged to grown into the very being and identity of their life in Jesus Christ, then do-tell, what kind of practical ministry is being undertaken; what kind of discipleship is happening; what kind of Christian formation is taking place? Piety can only get us as far as the end of our noses, and then it breaks off into the incurvature of the self over and over again. Christians are theologians by definition, by their life in Christ; as such the church maybe ought to consider what this means and attempt ministry that is beyond its own resources.

[1] Karl Barth, CD I/1, 73-4.