A woman in our church, Cyd Holsclaw, is taking our denomination’s ministerial studies program. The course named “Introduction to Theology” asks her to respond to several contextualized questions deriving from the various categories of what used to be called Systematic Theology. Looking at the questions she was given she decided to rewrite them. She said the questions were not really the questions she was getting from either new Christians or inquiring seekers. The questions have changed. What follows first are (some of) the questions she was given followed by her rewrite of the questions.
The Ministerial Studies Questions
ECCLESIOLOGY: How does your church compare to the purpose and pattern of the Early Church?
SOTERIOLOGY: A person from a Roman Catholic background asks you why you don’t pray to the Virgin Mary. How would you answer that person?
SANCTIFICATION: In your desire to become Christ-like, what quality of God’s character do you need the most?
THEOLOGY: What do you consider to be the greatest of God’s attributes and why?
ANTHROPOLOGY: A new Christian, who is concerned for his unsaved family members, asks you where his deceased grandfather, who never heard the gospel, is in eternity. How would you answer him?
Cyd’s Rewrite of the Questions
ECCLESIOLOGY: I don’t need church. Organized religion really bothers me… I’d rather just go for a walk in the woods and meet with God there.
SOTERIOLOGY: The whole idea of only one way to God is ridiculous. It’s so arrogant to say that Jesus is the only way. I’ve met a whole lot of people who are kinder and more compassionate than the Christians I’ve met. Those people seem more in touch with God.
SANCTIFICATION: God loves me unconditionally. I know there are some issues I need to deal with eventually, but don’t throw this legalism on me and give me a code of rules I’m supposed to live by. That’s not the kind of God I want to serve.
THEOLOGY: Jesus dying on the cross is so bloody and violent. How am I supposed to believe that a God who kills his own son in cold blood would love me?
ANTHROPOLOGY: Christianity is all about men. God is a man, Jesus is a man, pastors are men, etc. How do I, as a woman, fit into a faith that seems to be all about men?
I am struck by how often I hear the questions that Cyd put forth in her rewrite even when I go to the most conservative of locales and talk with evangelical pastors. Her insightful rewrite calls all of us theological educators to shape theological education beyond the acquiring of basic information. This of course is the continual struggle of all theological programs. Correspondence and online programs struggles with this even more. The first set of questions (from the Ministerial Studies Program) are important and in many ways foundational to answering the second set of questions (Cyd’s rewrite). We need both. Yet for many of us, we need an education that gives us the means to think through the concrete questions of our day theologically, Scripturally, historically and beyond the modernity and Christendom assumptions that seem to hover over the first set of questions.
How can we better connect the Systematic Theological questions with the concrete ones on the ground in our ministerial programs (especially correspondence and on-line programs)? There are many other questions like Cyd’s. Can you offer any additional?
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Not exactly the kinds of questions we are taught to answer in seminary training, but the exact questions we get from non-believers all the time.
thanks for this.
The questions indeed have changed. Another example I saw from Tim Keller (in an article somewhere on preaching) was this question:
“How can I take Christianity seriously when its sex ethic is so constricting?”
Keller’s answer was brilliant, from a postmodern perspective. He said that the real question was “Who is Jesus?” – because if you’re sick and your doctor prescribes some medicine, you take the medicine, whether it tastes good or not. You don’t taste-test medicines… so the real questions are “Am I sick?” and “Do I trust this Doctor?”
I found it to be a fascinating look at postmodern “apologetics” – remaining gentle but firmly steering people back to the real issues and questions.
I recently had to deal with the question if there’s a good God, why is there so much suffering?
It’s an ancient question which probably inspired the book of Job, but I didn’t see it on your list.
I’ve heard a lot of Christians blame and shame when answering this question. And it seems to me that God never does answer the why question in Job. I responded with a parental analogy, but in the end, it’s really a question of faith. We might never know the answer for some of life’s suffering until heaven.
It strikes me (if I am reading them correctly) that some of the fairly wooden-sounding questions proposed by the denomination nevertheless do get at a part of ministerial training Cyd’s marvelous and very true-to-life rewrites don’t — which is becoming aware of your own spiritual bent, style, handicaps, etc. I heartily agree that we should be helping ministerial candidates learn to give answers to questions people are actually asking instead of questions we think they ought to be asking, but I also hope we don’t become so focused on apologetics that we slight letting theological training challenge us to get perspective on our own spiritual assumptions/lives.
And that said, because I still love Cyd’s idea so much, I’ll add one:
Sanctification: I was brought up Christian but never got anything out of it. Now that I’m [practicing yoga, or other discipline] I’ve really started to grow spiritually.
First group: Who am I and why am I here?
Second group: Jesus I like, Christians not so much…
Am I the only one who notices that the rewrites aren’t really questions?
I don’t think this in an inaccurate way of characterizing what’s going on between Christians and non-Christians, but I find it telling.
The first challenge isn’t knowing how to answer questions; it’s knowing how to create a space where fear and mistrust give way to love and curiosity.
beth … I pretty much concur … theological content makes possible (or should) the opening for practical engagement
hurdler … interesting take on two perspectives…
and nate .. I entirely agree with what you’re getting at … which makes the church, the community of hospitality wherein we make sense of our lives, essential to the work of theology
Peace .. DF
Although I agree with much of the conversation, and the great thoughts it has bred, it seems that this discussion on ‘answering questions’ unearths a more foundational characteristic of our
‘modern’ theological teaching. Both sets of questions are formed in propositions and seek a set of true ‘propostional’ answers. Although I must acknowledge the necesity of propositional truths within relationships, I do not understand why so much of our faith is propositional in nature, defined by what we consider theology. I guess what I’m calling for is a fuller (not the school) theological education which prioritizes orthopraxy over orthodoxy; to walk with Christ rather than define him.
this is an interesting discussion of the kind of inner/outer sorts of understanding that Christians, like every other religious group, requires. I think we still need our traditional systematic categories to set a broad framework for faith but in concert with our own context driven questions. Tillich really focused on the existential/contextual questions and that is why i like his approach so much. But our own concerns can become a dead end when considered as the most important factor in theological construction. For Evangelicals of a more fundamentalist background, like myself, we need the humanizing and more context driven realities to guide us towards a list of statements like the ones above. But, the reformulated questions need to lead towards a deeper Evangelical or gospel driven faith.
David
love this post, it opens new possibilities for theological to be more embedded in church life. One question i might add is
‘What saves us-believing in Jesus or believing in the correct doctrine?’
I ask this because I have grandparents who can neither read or write. My people came to know Christ through missionaries but a lot of the first generation Christians of my people are illiterate.
And as i was trained in bible school and leaned western theology i was disturbed with how my grandparent are christians if they don’t have ‘right doctrine’. Do westerners always make the debate on ‘epistemology’ as the most important thing for every kind of people? What about people who are illiterate? Well i hope this is relevant for the conversation!
Thanks for this post again!
Jon.
I was thinking the same thing Nate that most of the rewrites were not questions. A matter of fact, a little rewording could make them into answers to the questions that were being asked.
One of the challanges I see in people who are “emerging” is there is more interest in “rewording the questions” instead of being “part of the answers” (and I say that as a pastor of a church that could be labeled emerging).
To rewrite the questions says to the school that there is a divide between you and them and you need to correct them. To answer the questions from the heart revealed in the “rewrites” shows an interest to be in conversation that maybe you both can learn from.
What I find most interesting about these rewrites is that her questions are not actually theological as such.
This perhaps highlights that the reason people don’t like the Church in 2008 is not the beliefs as such, but rather the political and social models that surround them – particularly in the US.
Thanks to you both for this observation.
Benjamin O’Brien
University of Leeds, UK
I think these are really good rewrites but notice that only two of them are questions the other three are statements. I wonder what the real questions of some of these are below the comments that seem to be important in themselves.
#1 First priority, is allowing communications to exist without the need for belittlements; or a shunning of ones personal understandings of their own grounds in the apologoetics–experiencing/or believing in the Christian Faith to begin with…..starting with this process than allows communicable/ ethical correspondings-a persons speaking in defencse of something they feel is adimatly correct;or a paritcular view-point, or just a personal conviction–through the personal experience processes…”Faith” IS in the eyes of the beholder–intricately wound for each personal relationship, with God/Man alone.
It is not just Non-Christians asking these question but many in the Church.
I like Ben's comment.
What the re-writes say to me is that we (the Church) are still recovering from believing and portraying God's work in Christ as something chiefly concerned with the after-life. We're recovering from the idea, deeply ingrained in our systematics and institutions and beyond, that the salvation (or rescue or help) that Jesus offers is, for the most part, a thing that "kicks in" after this life, and is not chiefly about a better way to do this life: as an apprentice of Jesus & part of God's administration on earth.
With Ben, the question is, what makes Jesus in particular worth listening to and following today? We're better on tomorrow than today, when it comes to "why follow Jesus", so people trust other leaders with their 'today.'
We've taken the most practical thing in the world–God's attempt to transform humanity into functionally good co-workers and family–and made it into something not really targeting this life.
the Holy Spirit knows all the questions and knows the answer to all of them.
Before we ask any other questions we have to deal with man’s basic spiritual problem, believing the integrity and the accuracy of God’s word. The best question is do we believe that the bible is the word of God? Do we believe that it will come to pass? Do we believe that it came as holy men of God spoke as they where moved by holy spirit? If so then God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness. From this point we can come to God and ask Him to show us answers from His word.