{"id":591,"date":"2013-10-25T12:44:57","date_gmt":"2013-10-25T12:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=591"},"modified":"2014-08-13T21:52:58","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T21:52:58","slug":"never-ending-story-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/never-ending-story-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Ending Story: Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"

While reading Alister E. McGrath\u2019s Christian Theology: An Introduction<\/em>, 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\u2019s roles, attire, social concerns, etc.), he stated how glad he was to be entering the church when everything was finally settled. \u00a0In other words, he didn\u2019t believe that the church had anything else to figure out\u2026it had arrived<\/em>! \u00a0I couldn\u2019t help but smile at this youthful naivety. \u00a0A good dose of McGrath would help Chad tremendously.<\/p>\n

What McGrath\u2019s 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\u2019s favorite term is \u201cdebate\u201d as he often ended discussions by saying that the church was still debating a particular topic[i]<\/a>).\u00a0 McGrath would definitely say the church has not arrived.<\/p>\n

But my sympathies are with this young man, as I was him<\/em> many years ago. \u00a0I had to go through crisis in thinking to bring me out of my na\u00efve little world. \u00a0In 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.\u00a0 It was all there in black and white.\u00a0 In my youth group and church, the concept that \u201cwe have it all figured out\u201d was a result of little or no interaction with those outside our community. \u00a0The crisis hit in college, when I was first confronted with the growing presence of the charismatic movement on campus.\u00a0 All of a sudden, my neat understanding of the Bible was thrown into chaos.\u00a0 Here were people reading the same Bible but with very different conclusions.\u00a0 This crisis only increased as I began to read authors from outside my tradition.<\/p>\n

McGrath\u2019s encyclopedic<\/em> introduction to theology shows clearly why the study of Bible can lead to various conclusions. \u00a0Wesley\u2019s approach to the Bible captures well the task McGrath performs throughout this introduction: \u201c\u2026the 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\u2026the message of Scripture must be received in the heart by a living faith, which experienced God as present.\u201d[ii]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0Theology 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

McGrath does a masterful job of demonstrating this complex process over time and in many cultures.\u00a0 He begins by making a large circle around the topic, introducing the key figures within their cultural and historical context.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But, McGrath doesn\u2019t leave the beginner hanging.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 These actors are given more depth and the historical setting become more defined as they wrestle with these topics in their context.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to Chad: What he failed to understand was that what he had received (his way of \u201cdoing church\u201d) was the outcome of centuries of study, argument and debate.\u00a0 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 \u201cchurch had arrived.\u201d\u00a0 But, McGrath\u2019s introduction should be a clear reminder that the process of theology is never complete. \u201cIt points to the fact that there is a provisional<\/em> or conditional<\/em> element to Christian doctrine\u2026\u201d[iii]<\/a> (author\u2019s italics) The greatest minds throughout history have struggled to apply Scripture to their time, including today. \u00a0As a young, na\u00efve person, I found this idea terribly unsettling: How could God\u2019s Word be so unclear? \u00a0It was only later that I understood it was God who doesn\u2019t change[iv]<\/a>. Rather, our human, fallen, fallible attempts to understand and know God in a world always in flux, that requires theology to never be complete.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have the final word.\u00a0 That means, dear Chad, the church has not yet arrived. \u00a0But 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?<\/p>\n

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[i]<\/a> Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction <\/em>(Oxford: John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2011), 118, 179, 190, 366.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[ii]<\/a> Ibid.,146.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[iii]<\/a> Ibid.,107.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[iv]<\/a> Heb. 13:8.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While reading Alister E. McGrath\u2019s 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\u2019s roles, attire, social concerns, etc.), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,199],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-mcgrath","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1926,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions\/1926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}