For so long now there has been a divide between the Christian academy and the Church. Rather than co-laborers, they have at times worked together more so as co-belligerents. Post-Reformation, theology increasingly became a specialized enterprise resulting in it turning into a compartmentalized discipline rather than retaining its place as the “Queen of the Sciences”. I don’t believe that this was ever the explicit intention of the scholarly community. Like most historical phenomenons, the cause cannot be reduced to a single factor. As I noted in a previous post, the common man is just as much to blame insofar as he has sustained an indifferent attitude towards serious theological engagement in general. Current theological movements (e.g. theological interpretation, biblical theology, and canonical approach) within academia are steadily trying to resolve this rift though their efforts are so new that their fruit has yet to be seen in the every day local church.

When I began reading the “Introduction” to Gerald Bray’s textbook on the history of biblical interpretation, I was moved by his concern over this same matter, and that out of his conviction, he produced this work. In just a few paragraphs, Bray bestows an abundance of wisdom related to the problem of the over-specialization of theology and the distance it creates between the academy and the church. However, it is the prerogative of the church itself to be interested in matters of faith, the Bible, and theology; therefore, the church remains supremely responsible for investigating and contending for its own faith.

Bray opens his Biblical Interpretation: Past & Present centered on this discussion, but narrows it to the topic of hermeneutics and the popularity of its study in the 20th century and on into the 21st century. The problem with its growth both in the academy and in the publishers’ market, however, is that “much of it is inaccessible to non-specialists and confusing to students (7).” In other words, just because more people are interested in studying the Bible doesn’t mean that the church at large is maturing in its knowledge of how to approach Scripture. Based upon Bray’s critique, it seems that what has happened in some circles is that scholars began writing books for one another rather than for the benefit of the practice of God’s people.  Bray continues, “A high percentage of the academic work currently being produced has little bearing on the life of the church, and is remote from the concerns of the average Christian.”

Once again, professional theologians should not be stuck solely with the blame, yet the truth stands that much of their writing, especially in contemporary biblical interpretation, cannot be penetrated apart from acquiring some level of expertise in the matter. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the chasm between the scholarly community and the common church congregation continues to widen as the disciplines grow in sophistication, thereby shutting down the attempts of the 40+ hour-a-week laymen at partaking in these discussions, thus fostering and adding to the already present mood of anti-intellectualism in the body of Christ. Bray recognizes this trend and comments:

At a time when churchgoers want to hear a clear word from God, scholars appear to be confusing issues and muddying the waters of biblical study to the point where even professional theologians find it difficult to follow what they are saying.

When the church is deprived from access to quality higher-Christian education, the result is that pastors and leaders are left to their own, and remain stymied in their own theological world despite their varied levels of effectiveness in the local church. A pastor who is the primary shepherd for a flock of let’s say 200 people doesn’t have the free time to pioneer the usefulness of speech-act theory or the validity of the multi-faceted nature of meaning in Scripture, and therefore, remains dependent upon someone in the academic community to provide him with an accessible aid or textbook on the matter so that he can bring a fuller and more mature hermeneutic to the table that does better justice to the nature of the Bible itself. However, if all the resources that speak on these very pertinent and beneficial issues continue to consist of a vocabulary that requires a specialized dictionary and careful decoding, along with the necessary time to read its total 400 pages, then the pastor will forever pass it and the valuable theology it offers by.

Again Bray sees this as a reality in the relationship between the academy and the church when he writes:

New methods of reading the text are constantly being explored, but with little interest being shown in their long-term viability as principles to guide interpretation. Meanwhile, the preaching and teaching work of the church goes on with less and less input from the world of biblical scholarship. Too often the result is a weak, emotionally based Christianity which has little intellectual content and no staying power.

Bray’s evaluation should not go unheeded by either side. Having held a place inside Christian education for close to a decade, I am more than aware that a large portion of textbooks devoted to a proper reading of Scripture and healthy methods of doing theology are some of the most difficult works I’ve ever had to read. And this comes from someone who is constantly reading in those fields. On the other hand, having grown up in the type of church culture that I did, I believe with all my heart that church leaders in every respect need to wake up to a broader and unavoidable theological world, and begin to take the initiative in seeking out higher Christian education, whether it be in a seminary classroom or in one’s own spare time in his armchair.

Both sides need to come to at least two basic conclusions. First, notwithstanding the place of the local church, the universal body of Christ encompasses all confessing true believers in Christ. As Paul affirms, there is one body, one faith, one Spirit, and one God and Father of all (Eph 4:3-6). When Christian scholarship and the life of the church fail to go hand in hand, then we have compartmentalized the faith to our own detriment. The church will suffer. The Bible is the Church’s book; thus, when it serves primarily as an object of study and exudes obscurity instead of serving as the means to knowing and loving God, its purpose has been betrayed and the body of Christ is cut off from its clear and life-giving light. Second, the everyday churchman must not delude himself into thinking that pure theology is always the simplest formula. Likewise, the professional theologian must not always equate quality scholarship with impenetrable sophistication. In his message to the 2009 Gospel Coalition, D. A. Carson exhorted future scholars to remember “that there are people out there.” In view of God’s infinite nature, surely we shouldn’t expect that what we know of him could be explained, exhausted, and resolved with only a good ol’ boy simplicity. On the other side, in the wisdom and love of God, we shouldn’t believe that in order to do justice to his revealed Word and to  acquire an in depth comprehension of theology, a person is required to read 4 books a week, take 12 years of specialized Christian academic training, and to have written a dissertation that no one can read nor wants to read, except other nerds (I include myself here) within your own discipline who are functioning at that level.

I appreciated Bray’s comments and that he opened his book on the history of biblical interpretation this way. It encourages me all the more to want to take up the torch within my place in Christian history in making sense of Scripture for the sake of the bride of Christ, for the hope of the lost, and for the glory of God. What are your thoughts on this issue?

Growing up in church, especially in the rural south in a Baptist context, you hear all kinds of things and all kinds of theologies. On the other hand, there is always the great possibility of hearing no theology while still hearing all kinds of other things. I remember being told on more than one occasion that seminary would ruin me because “all that theology isn’t necessary. The Lawd wants ya to keep thangs simple.” On other occasions, people have told me that they liked their pastor because “he preaches practical stuff, and not all that theology. Ya know, the practical stuff for us simple folk.” One more example comes from the last place where I served as youth pastor, where a few of the main figures in the church came to the pastor and requested that he quit preaching the heavy theological sermons, and return to just a simple gospel message. Note that this pastor’s “heavy theological” sermons were his attempts at preaching expositionally through books of the Bible. What was it that Paul said about preaching the whole counsel of God? Hmmm.

In his bright orange book, The Drama of Doctrine, Kevin J. Vanhoozer says that “The quality of our worship is therefore an index of the quality of our theology(and vice versa). The priority, however, lies with worship. Dogmatics both begins in and leads to doxology. The drama of doctrine directs us to worship and glorify God in all that we do (410).” Vanhoozer’s entire work could be summarized as one grand attempt at reversing and reforming the aforementioned mindsets. He observes that doctrine is ever-increasingly disappearing from the North American church scene, and in his assessment, part of the cause of the phenomenon is a faulty perception of what doctrine actually is and how it is meant to serve the body of Christ. As I read over the quote above in Vanhoozer’s book, it occurred to me that this idea is essentially where the breakdown begins and ends. All in all, it’s a false dichotomy, and a dangerous and destructive one at that; one that could very well have eternal repercussions.

Whoever came up with the idea that theology isn’t practical could not have been speaking of Christianity. That kind of notion could not be any more anti-Christian. Just a basic reading of the Pastoral Epistles (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus) will give you more than enough support for the priority of the role of sound theology for living rightly before God. Moreover, Christ put it very plain and simple for the Woman at the Well–and for all of us–that the true worshippers of God are those who glorify him in both spirit and truth (Jn 4:24). Another obvious admonition from Scripture is found in the greatest commandment which calls for believers to love God with their whole being, including the mind. So to think that theology, or rather Christian doctrine, bogs down one’s walk with the Lord is nonsense.

In the Vanhoozer quote above, three things stick out worthy of further reflection. Here I’m going to speak of these aspects in light of a local church setting, not simply an individual’s faith.

First, the quality of a church’s worship ought to be an indicator of the quality of its theology. Let me begin by saying out front that the quality of worship in this case must not be measured solely by its intensity or emotional involvement. We’re talking about “quality” here, not good intentions. I believe what Vanhoozer has in mind by setting up this inter-relationship is that a church’s worship should be expressed through an ever-increasing and maturing knowledge of God. Therefore, a church whose theological state of being is nothing more than infantile and selective, so will its worship and praise of God. Here you will find churches that refuse to sit under the Lord’s total authority in Scripture, giving him glory only in a works-based system, and pick and choose which doctrines they wish “to know about” that best fit their daily lives. I may be wrong, but this type of church most likely will talk very little of the seriousness of sin and the fight against the flesh. This is also the place where The Shack is welcomed with open arms as the new Wednesday night Bible study.

Second, dogmatics leads to doxology. You can test the quality of a church’s theology by its worship because the worship should be overflowing out of the well of its doctrine. This is the place where so many churches get it wrong. Doctrine’s aim is not primarily knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Doctrine serves the same purpose as that of its source: the revelation of God. God has revealed himself to this world so that we might in turn ascribe to him the glory due his name. Doctrine strives to make sense of God’s revelation in order to enable people to worship God rightly, in spirit and in truth (note that this is God’s requirement, not the theologian’s). A church that takes the task of theology seriously is one that is actively striving to better magnify the One, True and Living God. So when I hear statements like those sampled in the first paragraph of this post, I hear more than just someone who doesn’t have an appetite for reading or studying; I hear someone who lacks an unquenchable appetite for tasting and seeing that the Lord is good (by the way, this is not an inexhaustible task . . . which is good news). Just a quick test: Does the Word of God taste like honey to your lips? It should. And it should because of the glorious one it proclaims to you.

And third, doctrine is meant to direct, not only to inform. The end goal, as we have already discussed, is worship. But what does deep doctrine have to offer us in this regard? When people speak of wanting to discard the heavy theology for more practical preaching, what they are saying is that they want more examples, stories, illustrations, and tangible applications rather than substantial commentary on a text or an in depth explanation of a doctrine. This point is one of the downfalls of most Christian living books. They offer well-articulated and concrete methods of how to be a Christian, but they avoid showing you how doctrine itself is relevant in that process. This is one of the reasons why I became hooked to John Piper’s books. He was one of the first Christian writers that I had read who took doctrines of the faith and showed how they affect one’s daily life. For instance, in Counted Righteous in Christ, in chapter one Piper shows the manner in which the doctrine of justification by faith alone impacts and guides his relationship with his family, both with his wife and his children (27-30). In another place, in one of his more popular works, Don’t Waste Your Life, Piper demonstrates how the doctrine of the atonement has ramifications for how he views and responds to the totaling of his family’s car, an old Dodge Spirit (53-54; Vanhoozer himself in The Drama of Doctrine also uses the atonement as a case study of his directive theory of doctrine). Not many people write like that.

Each of these three points are all saying the same thing in nuanced ways: Doctrine directs people to worship God with their whole lives. So for instance, the doctrine of adoption as a part of salvation is intended for more than simply just to describe and communicate to you that you have been adopted in the Son of God by the Father as one of his children. The doctrine of adoption is meant to serve as a directive and guide for you in terms of how you live out your new position in Christ, as a child of God, in relationship with this world. Specific applications and stories are not necessarily important at this point because the doctrine itself is meant to be a vehicle through which God does a transformative work in your life by means of the Word and the Spirit, causing your habits and instincts to be those of Christ’s; we have a new nature where being a Christian becomes a natural thing. But ultimately, the doctrine is meant for you to stand in awe of the Holy Father who has brought you, a rebellious and wayward son, into the family of God, all because of his choice to show mercy and compassion on an undeserving sinner. But how will you be able to allow this doctrine to direct you in your sonship if your knowledge of it is slim to none?

Does Christian doctrine founded upon the Word of God direct your worship of Lord? If not, then what does? If it is anything else, then most likely what you’re doing towards God is not worship at all.

What are some doctrines that you think have been neglected in churches today that have caused the “practical” lives of church members to suffer the most? I’ll kick it off with my own submission: The Doctrine of The Trinity.

I am praying that God will enable me to uphold this motto as I continue in my Ph. D. studies and as a Greek professor this spring semester and beyond. I also pray that the Lord will direct me to a dissertation thesis that will end in such a result. Will you join me?:

The chief lesson and study in divinity is, that we learn well and rightly to know Christ, who is therein very graciously pictured forth unto us (163). ~ Martin Luther, “Of Jesus Christ,” TableTalk, #182.

In a post last month, I talked about the public reading of Scripture and submitted some observations from N. T. Wright where he commented that our devotion to Scripture’s open-air proclamation during worship can serve as a test of how we view its authority. I believe his words are very timely and that we should strive to have more of the Bible read during our worship services (Click here to view Wright’s book The Last Word). I think the very fact that our people become restless when large chunks of Scripture are read aloud during a service reveals just how far we’ve gone from sitting in awe and wonder before the Word of the Lord, captivated by its every word.

Another area which Wright posits as a scenario where a healthy understanding of the authority of Scripture can be cultivated is the relationship between the church and the academy. This is a relationship where Scripture’s authority can at times be tested the most as well as even perhaps questioned. Yet, Wright affirms the role of biblical scholarship and its necessity. He assures believers that:

Biblical scholarship is a great gift of God to the church, aiding it in its task of going ever deeper into the meaning of scripture and so being refreshed and energized for the tasks to which we are called in and for the world (135).

There are, of course, many arguments both theological and rational to be made for the support of the on-going contribution of the theological academy. However, in this case, Wright sees that biblical scholarship has a very important hand in the exercising of the authority of Scripture. Churches ought to equip themselves with a ready desire to know the Bible in a richer and more precise manner, which could be a task that the everyday layman or even busy-body pastor is unable to perform sufficiently. I mean, let’s be honest, most preachers do not even have the time to translate their sermon text before Sunday, even if they have the tools to do so. Moreover, what committed 40 hour a week deacon or elder has the time to exhaustively and thoroughly keep up with the world of NT Theology or say, the ever-growing library for theological interpretation or rather philosophical hermeneutics? Wright adds:

The Bible is a big enough book, and the church ought to be a big enough community, to develop a relationship of trust between its biblical scholars and those involved in the many other tasks to which we are called. True, that trust has been sorely tried in the last few generations. . . . It is time to end this standoff, and to establish a hermeneutic of trust (itself a sign of the gospel!) in place of the hermeneutic of suspiscion which the church has so diastrously borrowed from the postmodern world (136-7).

One other sober warning from Wright concerning the need for the church to be in support of the work of its professional scholars and theologians is the misguided idea that the Bible has already been completely exhausted in terms of its meaning and application. For churches to perceive that all possible theological constructs and systematic categories that could exist are the ones that in fact do exist is sorely ignorant. For any Christian, much less a corporate body of believers, to think that they have theologically “arrived” is dangerous territory and shows that Scripture has already begun to lose a vital place in governing the life of the Christian community. Wright exhorts churches to be . . .

. . . open to new understandings of the Bible itself. That is the only way to avoid being blown this way or that by winds of fashion, or trapped in one’s own partial readings and distorted traditions while imagining that they are a full and accurate account of “what the Bible says” (135).

I know that I remember many warnings when I first signed up for Christian college in high school that I was going away to be ruined. Even I was leery in my early days at North Greenville of what I was being taught, mostly because I was having my world turned upside down. But, I think one of the greatest mistakes is that somewhere in the past, Christians began to see the knowledge of God and the Bible as in some way disconnected from spirituality which resulted in a lot of shrouded mysticism thriving in many churches. Today, we can see somewhat of a resurgence of that mentality in the Emergent church where scholars and theologians are portrayed as arrogant and nothing but talking-heads, and experience is elevated to the place of priority. Yet, we are all gravely mistaken when we think that we can truly live under the authority of a Bible that we hardly even know. How can I truly know how to live in this world and in holiness before a Holy God without searching the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, all of which are hidden in Christ who has been perfectly revealed in the Scriptures? May we always pray with Jesus, “O Lord, Sanctify us by your word; your word is truth (John 17:17).”

D. A. Carson, that’s who.

I stumbled upon a blog that featured some audio from a recent conference called Clarus which was headed up by Carson and Michael Horton. In a short clip from one of the panel discussions, someone asked Carson about his reading habits. He then proceeded to answer by stating that he reads about 500 books a year. But, he qualified that statement by claiming that there’s reading and then there’s reading. Anyway, I was blown away and immediately began to make myself feel better about how much I read a year by ascribing Carson’s reading habits to two viable causes that may account for the consumption of that much material. One is that he doesn’t sleep. And second, if he does in fact sleep, then Carson must be an alien. Yet, in my heart of hearts, I know that neither of those two possibilities are probably true and that he is in truth a human who does sleep.

In all seriousness, I would recommend everyone who is serious about reading to pick up Mortimer Adler’s classic, How to Read a Book. I bought it last summer and read most of it, and his instruction has helped me consume double, if not triple, the amount of the material I am able to read, remember, and comprehend. I’m sure that Carson probably uses several of Adler’s techniques as evidenced in his statement asserting that there are different levels of reading. Whether or not 500 books a year is a realistic goal for anyone else besides Carson, you can definitely see the fruit from his scholarly devotion in all of his work which is always some of the most valuable and sought after books and commentaries in evangelicalism. 

• Click here to go to Denny Burk’s blog that featured this audio clip. He has the link all set up for you to go straight to this discussion and Carson’s comments.