On didacticism, autodidacticism and theodidacticism
I'm looking at my bookcases as I write this. They are filled to overflowing--mostly with theological works: Bibles; commentaries on the Bible; tomes on church history, ancient Greco-Roman culture, Jewish customs; dense theological treateses intended for scholars and lighter fare written for the rank & file; writings of early church fathers and contemporary church leaders; and the more recently added shelf of Quaker writings. Over the years I have spent thousands of dollars on books to feed my passion for Christian theology. Theology has been defined as "faith seeking knowledge", and I have always been a seeker. My autodidactic approach has cost me much less than a formal seminary education would have, but has also left me with a patchwork knowledge and large gaps (for example, my grasp of the ancient Greek and Hebrew languages is terribly lacking).
Lately I find myself wondering, as I look at my collection of books, how much I could get for them at the used book store. Mere pennies on the dollar, no doubt. It's not that I've given up on theology but rather that I find myself less interested in learning about thing related to God and more interested in simply experiencing God.
How did Christianity come to be such an intellectual religion? I suppose it can be traced back to the Scholastic Movement of the 12th and 13th centuries. A few hundred years later came Luther, Calvin, and other Protestant Reformers who were inheritors of Scholasticism. Luther was a university professor and Calvin a lawyer. The Protestant wing of Christianity has placed a heavy emphasis on discipleship via the acquisition of knowledge. Most church buildings are designed as lecture halls and at the heart of most Christian worship services is the sermon. Lately it seems many churches prefer to use the word teaching instead of sermon. Either way, it remains an instructional monologue.
It seems that no Christian event or gathering is deemed complete unless it centers around a lecture-style teaching session.
The original followers of Jesus were not, by and large, theologians. Paul would be an exception, yet Paul wrote that he considered his impressive credentials "a pile of shit" compared to knowing Christ. Peter, John, James and the rest did not have a well-defined understanding of the implications of trinitarianism, nor did they sit around pondering the hypostatic union of Christ's human and divine natures. What they (and Paul) knew was that they had encountered God in such a powerful way that it entirely changed their world.
Tony Campolo seems to have figured out the balance of living both the interior life of a scholar and the hands-on outwardly-focused life of a follower of Jesus. In Tony's book "Let Me Tell You a Story", he relays the following account about Karl Barth giving a lecture in his later years at the University of Chicago Divinity School (Barth was the author of the fourteen volume "Church Dogmatics" and is generally considered one of Christianity's great theologians): “At the end of the lecture, the president of the seminary told the audience that Dr. Barth was not well and was very tired, and though he thought Dr. Barth would like to open for questions, he probably could not handle the strain. Then he said, "Therefore, I'll ask just one question on behalf of all of us." He turned to Barth and asked, "Of all the theological insights you have ever had, which do you consider to be the greatest of them all?" This was a remarkable question to ask a man who had written tens of thousands of pages of some of the most sophisticated theology ever put on paper. The students sat with pads and pencils ready. They wanted to jot down the premier insight of the greatest theologian of their time. Karl Barth closed his eyes and thought for a while. Then he smiled, opened his eyes, and said to the young seminarians, "The greatest theological insight that I have ever had is this: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!”
To pit theological study against experiencing God would be a false dichotomy. I have often experienced God in the course of my studies. But there is also a time to set the books and theories aside and just be with God and learn directly from Him (see 1 John 2). There is always the danger of thinking that learning about God and the Bible is the same thing as learning from Him. What I learn from Him tends to have more of an effect on my heart than my head.
The ongoing personal, experiential encounter with God has been given short-shrift in Protestant, Anglican, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The tendency has been to put in it's place knowledge acquisition and/or ritual. In doing so, the simplicity of hearing and following Jesus has been denegrated to the realm of a few other-worldly mystics. Yet hearing directly from God and following Him is anything but other-worldly. It is incredibly practical and earthy and incarnational, just as Jesus was when He walked the streets and hills of Palestine.
I guess I'm just at a point in my journey where I'm fairly satisfied with the theological framework that I've cobbled together. My hunger has gradually shifted from seeking to understand into seeking to stand under. The more I taste of God's living presence, the more I want that. It gets simpler and simpler.
I'll keep my books though.
Lately I find myself wondering, as I look at my collection of books, how much I could get for them at the used book store. Mere pennies on the dollar, no doubt. It's not that I've given up on theology but rather that I find myself less interested in learning about thing related to God and more interested in simply experiencing God.
How did Christianity come to be such an intellectual religion? I suppose it can be traced back to the Scholastic Movement of the 12th and 13th centuries. A few hundred years later came Luther, Calvin, and other Protestant Reformers who were inheritors of Scholasticism. Luther was a university professor and Calvin a lawyer. The Protestant wing of Christianity has placed a heavy emphasis on discipleship via the acquisition of knowledge. Most church buildings are designed as lecture halls and at the heart of most Christian worship services is the sermon. Lately it seems many churches prefer to use the word teaching instead of sermon. Either way, it remains an instructional monologue.
It seems that no Christian event or gathering is deemed complete unless it centers around a lecture-style teaching session.
The original followers of Jesus were not, by and large, theologians. Paul would be an exception, yet Paul wrote that he considered his impressive credentials "a pile of shit" compared to knowing Christ. Peter, John, James and the rest did not have a well-defined understanding of the implications of trinitarianism, nor did they sit around pondering the hypostatic union of Christ's human and divine natures. What they (and Paul) knew was that they had encountered God in such a powerful way that it entirely changed their world.
Tony Campolo seems to have figured out the balance of living both the interior life of a scholar and the hands-on outwardly-focused life of a follower of Jesus. In Tony's book "Let Me Tell You a Story", he relays the following account about Karl Barth giving a lecture in his later years at the University of Chicago Divinity School (Barth was the author of the fourteen volume "Church Dogmatics" and is generally considered one of Christianity's great theologians): “At the end of the lecture, the president of the seminary told the audience that Dr. Barth was not well and was very tired, and though he thought Dr. Barth would like to open for questions, he probably could not handle the strain. Then he said, "Therefore, I'll ask just one question on behalf of all of us." He turned to Barth and asked, "Of all the theological insights you have ever had, which do you consider to be the greatest of them all?" This was a remarkable question to ask a man who had written tens of thousands of pages of some of the most sophisticated theology ever put on paper. The students sat with pads and pencils ready. They wanted to jot down the premier insight of the greatest theologian of their time. Karl Barth closed his eyes and thought for a while. Then he smiled, opened his eyes, and said to the young seminarians, "The greatest theological insight that I have ever had is this: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so!”
To pit theological study against experiencing God would be a false dichotomy. I have often experienced God in the course of my studies. But there is also a time to set the books and theories aside and just be with God and learn directly from Him (see 1 John 2). There is always the danger of thinking that learning about God and the Bible is the same thing as learning from Him. What I learn from Him tends to have more of an effect on my heart than my head.
The ongoing personal, experiential encounter with God has been given short-shrift in Protestant, Anglican, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The tendency has been to put in it's place knowledge acquisition and/or ritual. In doing so, the simplicity of hearing and following Jesus has been denegrated to the realm of a few other-worldly mystics. Yet hearing directly from God and following Him is anything but other-worldly. It is incredibly practical and earthy and incarnational, just as Jesus was when He walked the streets and hills of Palestine.
I guess I'm just at a point in my journey where I'm fairly satisfied with the theological framework that I've cobbled together. My hunger has gradually shifted from seeking to understand into seeking to stand under. The more I taste of God's living presence, the more I want that. It gets simpler and simpler.
I'll keep my books though.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home