Never Ending Story: Theology
While reading Alister E. McGrath’s Christian Theology: An Introduction, I was reminded of a conversation I had with Bible college student named Chad. After a good discussion about the seismic and painful changes over the last forty years in how we do church in the USA (including worship styles, women’s roles, attire, social concerns, etc.), he stated how glad he was to be entering the church when everything was finally settled. In other words, he didn’t believe that the church had anything else to figure out…it had arrived! I couldn’t help but smile at this youthful naivety. A good dose of McGrath would help Chad tremendously.
What McGrath’s book does so well is demonstrate that theology has not only gone through thousands of years of development through argument, debate and cultural confrontations, it is still involved in important debates as it faces new cultures and philosophical viewpoints that require new ways of applying and communicating the Gospel message. (In fact, I believe McGrath’s favorite term is “debate” as he often ended discussions by saying that the church was still debating a particular topic[i]). McGrath would definitely say the church has not arrived.
But my sympathies are with this young man, as I was him many years ago. I had to go through crisis in thinking to bring me out of my naïve little world. In my earlier years as a Christian, as I took up the Bible for first time, it seemed so straight forward and simple: it was a fascinating adventure story about God sending His Son into the world and about the life God wanted me to live. It was all there in black and white. In my youth group and church, the concept that “we have it all figured out” was a result of little or no interaction with those outside our community. The crisis hit in college, when I was first confronted with the growing presence of the charismatic movement on campus. All of a sudden, my neat understanding of the Bible was thrown into chaos. Here were people reading the same Bible but with very different conclusions. This crisis only increased as I began to read authors from outside my tradition.
McGrath’s encyclopedic introduction to theology shows clearly why the study of Bible can lead to various conclusions. Wesley’s approach to the Bible captures well the task McGrath performs throughout this introduction: “…the task of interpreting the Bible was to be illuminated by the collective Christian wisdom of other ages and cultures between the apostolic age and our own, as well as being protected from obscurantism by means of the disciplines of critical reason. Most importantly…the message of Scripture must be received in the heart by a living faith, which experienced God as present.”[ii] Theology involves then the interaction of Christian wisdom throughout 2000 years of church history, in hundreds of different cultural settings, refined and critically tested by the wisdom from outside the church. The process is completed by application of the message of Scripture in the lives of people, making this an understandably messy, complex and never ending process.
McGrath does a masterful job of demonstrating this complex process over time and in many cultures. He begins by making a large circle around the topic, introducing the key figures within their cultural and historical context. This first section of the book comes as a rapid-fire introduction of many key players, issues, terms and history, that would have overwhelmed me had I not read theology and history for thirty years. But, McGrath doesn’t leave the beginner hanging. In the second section, he circles again, dealing now with topics such as sources, culture, orthodoxy, reason, philosophy and revelation, reintroducing the key players as they reflect on these important issues necessary for understanding and interpreting Scripture. These actors are given more depth and the historical setting become more defined as they wrestle with these topics in their context. Then, in the final section, McGrath circles in even closer by focusing on the major topics of Biblical theology from God, Jesus and Holy Spirit, to salvation, church and end times. Again, McGrath deals with each of these topics by letting the key players speak within their time and culture, giving the reader a comprehensive understanding of the processes and arguments behind these important issues. By the end, the beginner should have an awareness of the complex, rich and challenging process that the church has struggled through over two millennium to faithfully comprehend and live out the truth of Scripture in constantly changing circumstances.
Which brings us back to Chad: What he failed to understand was that what he had received (his way of “doing church”) was the outcome of centuries of study, argument and debate. Because of his isolated life (having grown up in the same church with only one interpretation Scripture and reinforced in a Bible college that taught the same basic beliefs as his church), it would look like “church had arrived.” But, McGrath’s introduction should be a clear reminder that the process of theology is never complete. “It points to the fact that there is a provisional or conditional element to Christian doctrine…”[iii] (author’s italics) The greatest minds throughout history have struggled to apply Scripture to their time, including today. As a young, naïve person, I found this idea terribly unsettling: How could God’s Word be so unclear? It was only later that I understood it was God who doesn’t change[iv]. Rather, our human, fallen, fallible attempts to understand and know God in a world always in flux, that requires theology to never be complete. We don’t have the final word. That means, dear Chad, the church has not yet arrived. But the bigger question is: How many others are today in the church who, like Chad, have no concept of the rich history of our faith and believe that there are no more important questions for the church to struggle with?
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