What Are Theologians For?

Very good stuff from Kevin Vanhoozer...

Why Study Theology?

This is just excellent - from my friend Joe Thorn.

Advice on Reading Theological Works

Nick Batzig offers some great advice on reading theological works under nine headings:

1. Read every chapter, article or sermon recommended by professors, pastors and theologians that you hold in high esteem.
2. Make the level of your reading to vary. Be reading more difficult and less difficult books.
3. Don’t neglect the footnotes or endnotes .
4. Ask friends what they are reading and what they have found most helpful.
5. Read those chapters that appear to be most closely related to the subject you are currently studying.
6. Read chapters that are relevant to a particular theological issue with which you are wrestling.
7. Find compilation volumes and familiarize yourself with the contributors and chapter titles.
8. Find and read doctoral dissertations.
9. Guard your heart and mind from intellectual pride.

This is a great post. Read the whole article here and check out the website, too. Thanks, Nick.

Lig Duncan on Reformed Theology

I thought this video was great. Clear, concise and to the point, it opens the door to understand the Reformed faith.

The Proper Study of Theology

I'd like to commend to you an article in the recently published issue of Themelios titled An Augustinian Mindset by Peter Sanlon. The thrust of the article is that we who study theology should not let our studies be purely academic endeavors rather, we should be embracing in our hearts the theology that we are studying. The author outlines Augustine's thoughts in his De Doctrina Christiana. Perhaps a few quotes will give you an idea of the importance of this and entice you to take a few moments to read and give thought to it:

... De Doctrina Christiana I has its own purpose of immense value to scholars, students, and preachers. This purpose fits with the structure of the work as a whole and meshes with Augustine’s theological outlook. The original contention of this article is that Augustine intended the first chapter of his book to promote a mindset conducive to understanding the Bible. The hermeneutical principles outlined in the following chapters would be worse than useless to the student who did not first foster an appropriate posture and mindset. The work follows a logical order—first develop the mindset appropriate to the reading of the Bible, then learn the principles of interpretation and lastly study how to communicate what has been learnt to others (pg. 40).

We are ourselves torn and divided, our own habits and desires making us wander obsessively away from our home. For some the control exerted through shiny electronic toys distracts from the journey. For some the forgetful ecstasy of sexual relationships enthrals off the path. For some the study and teaching of the Bible itself becomes an arid wind that blows us off course. Whatever the specific means by which we get lost, in every case the result is the same: spiritual, inner blindness. Our "inner eyes are weak and unclean."15 So we find that when we try to study the Bible, it no longer makes sense. Those who fail to approach the Bible with the correct mindset—a due sense of being on a moral journey and being lost—find that their ability to understand fades (pg. 41).

So we find that when we try to study the Bible, it no longer makes sense. Those who fail to approach the Bible with the correct mindset—a due sense of being on a moral journey and being lost—find that their ability to understand fades (pg.41).

A merely intellectual grasp of this journey is however not enough to acquire the Augustinian mindset. It is not sufficient merely to understand the Christian story of sin and salvation. Augustine takes considerable pains in De Doctrina Christiana I to foster a sense of the beauty of Wisdom’s healing journey: "Just as when doctors bind up wounds, they do not do it untidily, but neatly, so that the bandage, as well as being useful, can also to some extent have its proper beauty, in the same sort of way Wisdom adapted her healing art to our wounds by taking on a human being" (pg.43).

In order to read Scripture fruitfully, we need the mindset of conscious existential appreciation of the beauty of God’s gracious journey to us in Jesus 9pg. 44).

The urgent need to foster an Augustinian mindset in our approach to the theological task may be emphasised by considering the horror of people attempting to live out the lessons of the other three chapters of De Doctrina Christiana without the mindset demanded by the first chapter. Imagine scholars adept in handling the Bible as a work of ancient literature, interpreting with academic precision, but lacking the mindset to do so for the reasons God gave us the text: no appreciation for the beauty of Jesus’ saving work, no thirst to know him better, no value judgement passed on intellectually weak rejections of him.... Augustine was surely right to insist that his students develop a healthy mindset for approaching Scripture. We embrace interpretation and persuasion without it at our peril.
Such a mindset will show itself in at least two important areas: love and humility. have seen that our lostness can be mapped as disordered loves, preferring to enjoy that which should be only used and neglecting the great goal of life: the love of God. Often as children of the enlightenment we suffer from a theological tunnel vision. We focus on details and miss the big picture. analyse individual facts apart from the central reference point, rightly ordered love for God and our neighbour (pgs. 44-45).

Essays, books, marks, promotions, languages, and computerised lexicons should not be enjoyed in and of themselves. God created them to be used as means for enjoying Him. If we prematurely foreclose our thoughts by resting happily on the means of academic study, we are in danger of becoming infatuated with the transport. We should be obsessed with getting home to the one we love. Such an obsession will develop a mindset that leads to fruitful theology (pg. 45).

May we all take some time to reflect within ourselves as to what we're accomplishing when reading all these books and ingesting all this knowledge. Are we reading for knowledge sake alone or are we applying the truth to our lives for the glory of our risen Saviour?

Speaking of God...

“…Theology has become a bad word in Christian circles. It seems that theology is linked in people’s minds with cold, dead religion that cares more about principles and matters of the head than deeds and matters of the heart. It is associated with fundamentalism and with cold conservatism. Yet if we look at the meaning and etymology of the word we cannot help but conclude that God requires all Christians to be theologians.
Theology is good. And not only is it good, but it is critical to the Christian walk and is an expectation of God. The word theology is derived from two Greek words. The root “theos” means God and the suffix “-ology” comes from the Greek word for speak. So what theology really means is “speaking of God” or as has become the more accurate definition, “the study of God.” It is impossible for us to grow closer to God (ie “sanctification”) if we do not learn more about Him. While all we need to know to be saved is our own depravity and God’s grace, to grow in that grace we need to learn more about God - about His character and attributes, about our place before Him, and about His will for our lives…”

(HT:Challies)

Photo Credit

Lovin' the Blues

Blind Willie Johnson

As a long time lover of the blues, I found this piece at Reformation 21 engaging. Not alot of new information for someone who listens to the blues but possibly for someone who has been under the impression, like many, that the blues is the Devil's music. In The "Spirituals and the Blues," James Cone debunks the thesis that while the spirituals are church music, the blues is the Devil’s music. In some ways, as Cone readily admits, the disjuncture is legitimate. For instance, Son House was confronted with a crossroads decision: Should he take up the guitar and be a bluesman or should he pick up his Bible and be a preacher? He chose the former, but at least he sang about the latter in his song “Preachin’ Blues.” Cone quickly points out, however, how overdrawn the disjuncture is and argues instead for a symbiosis of the two. To put the matter directly, the blues wouldn’t be the blues without the spirituals. Continuing....The spirituals provided the blues artists with the musical experience out of which they could craft their art. The spirituals further provided the blues artists with the content out of which they would craft their lyrics. The spirituals were filled with hope and longing, all the while facing head on the realities of sin and the harshness of life. Faulkner titled his work on the conflicts in the Delta during the exact same decades as the birth of the blues Go Down, Moses (1942). Through the spirituals, the people of the Delta had become one with the grand story of redemption in Exodus. They had appropriated it so often that it had become their story. They also knew all too well the biblical theme of exile, a dynamic sociologists refer to as marginalization, a sterile term for oppression. Blues artists appropriated the themes of exile, bondage, and oppression (sin) against the theme of hope and promise (redemption) throughout their music. “They call it stormy Monday,” but, the song continues, “Tuesday’s just as bad, Wednesday’s even worse, Thursday’s awfully sad.” But then, “Sunday I go to church where I kneel down to pray,” adding, as if taking a line from The Book of Common Prayer, “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on me.” The blues artists may have left the church, but the church, and especially the spirituals, hadn’t left them. They were developing a distinct theology, a theology, like their music, that was set in a minor key.

Certainly, like many things, there are the blues today that are very far removed from what this article is describing. Yet, the root of all blues (and rock) is a theology set in a minor key. Give this piece a read and listen to some blues because...The blues invites us not only to embrace the curse but also simultaneously to embrace the cross. To see the broken made whole, the lost found. We see the exile and stranger make their way back home. “I was blind, but now I see,” goes the classic. Not through some cheap happy ending, but in the identification and the defeat of all sorrow and sin in the Man of Sorrows on the cross, the most solemn minor key ever sounded in human history. In short, the blues helps us understand what theologians call redemption, all of the realities of life under the cross.