A question that's plagued me since starting divinity school is: How much theology should one teach in a local church/parish? A joke blog made by folks at Duke Divinity School recently featured a satirical article about a young seminarian giving a children's sermon on "apokatastasis." But it was a common question in my theology classes: how do we "translate" this stuff to the parish? Theology gets pretty heady sometimes, how much is translatable at all?
I've been working on a project that looks at this question in ancient church history. Early theologians like Clement of Alexandria or Origen distinguished between two classes of believers, the "fleshly" believers and the "spiritual." They said one kind of doctrine was appropriate for the unlearned fleshly believers but that there was another spiritual doctrine that was only appropriate for the spiritual believers.
But I found a set of sermons by Augustine on John 16:12, where Jesus says "I have many more things to teach you, but you cannot bear them now." Augustine says that believers should immediately distrust any person or group who claims to have this knowledge, or any other kind of secret knowledge or doctrine. Although Augustine recognizes that believers have different levels of capacity for understanding all the truths of the faith, he assures his readers that there is one faith common to all. As he says, "Christ crucified is both milk to sucklings and meat to the more advanced."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I struggle with the "translatable" all the time, especially since I am in youth ministry. Thanks for the encouragement- "one faith common to all!"
ReplyDeleteMatt, maybe sermons and lessons need aspire to be nothing more than, though nothing short of, good narratives, good books, in the sense that the same words are "both milk...and meat." I would say that is the challenge, and maybe the test, of the truth we try to speak: are our words edifying and challenging to all who may hear them? I think when we try to make our words pure milk, we fail to ask our hearers to grow up (think of "baby talk," the failing to ask the child to learn to use our words, to speak back). But if we try to make our words pure meat, then we are only showing how "meaty" we are (think of "educated talk," the failing to let the other learn to use our words, to speak back). Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteYeah i think that's something that theologians struggle with. Sometimes I wonder if the link between theology and modern universities was bad for theology in general. Now one has to write in genres/forms that are "academic enough" to be recognized as a real theologian. But these forms use footnotes, technical terms like "eschatology," and so on.
ReplyDeleteBut if someone like C.S. Lewis writes a more "narrative" presentation of theology, they aren't considered to be "real theologians" because they don't write in those forms.
But CS Lewis influenced way more people anyway. This is an interesting discussion, I'm gonna blog about it more soon!
Yeah, I wouldn't even say it had to be an actual narrative. But I fully agree with you that universities often want (and so train us in) a certain form of writing that privileges a particular (educated) audience. I wonder why that is, it's like they're setting us up to have a problem with "translation." I mean, maybe its unavoidable to a certain extent, but I wonder why we don't place enough emphasis on the balance, especially if truth may be better able to flourish and grow there than in our über-academic jargon. Definitely post more thoughts on it, would love to hear.
ReplyDelete