What is Christian theology?

 Theology is a human undertaking that seeks to apprehend, understand, and speak of God. Theology is similar to the sciences (academic disciplines) in the sense that they also seek to apprehend a specific object and its environment and in a manner that is directed by the phenomenon itself. They seek to understand the object (phenomenon) on its own terms along with the implications of the existence of the object.

Christian theology is concerned with the God who claims to be revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, as described in the Bible. Christian theology seeks to apprehend, understand, and speak of this God and of the deeds of this God in history.

This God is greater than and stands in judgement over all human endeavours, including theology. It cannot claim an authority that is greater than God. Thus, this theology should not be equated with any theology that claims to be definitive, whether Reformed theology, Catholic theology, Feminist theology, Evangelical theology, Liberation Theology, Pentecostal theology, Liberal theology, ... Hence humility and a spirit of generosity must be central to authentic Christian theology.

Christian theology is concerned with Jesus, the incarnation of God. This is Emmanuel; God is with us! Thus, this theology is joyful and thankful.

What I have written above is largely a paraphrase of what Karl Barth writes in the first chapter of Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, based on lectures he gave sixty years ago. I chose to subsitute "Christian" for "Evangelical" because in today's world, "evangelical" has taken on a sociological and political meaning, particularly being associated with some of the strongest supporters of Donald Trump. 

I believe this perspective of what Christian theology is can be quite helpful in considering the relationship between theology and the sciences (natural and social). This perspective facilitates the exploration of concrete similarities and differences, particularly with regard to four areas I discussed in more detail earlier: the life and experience of individuals, communities and institutions, bodies of knowledge, and underlying realities.

Latin American perspectives on who Jesus is

In Search of Christ in Latin America: From Colonial Image to Liberating Savior, by Samuel Escobar is fascinating and helpful. It takes a historical approach to Christology, surveying how ideas about Christ developed over time in Latin America. Particular attention is paid to the changing context: cultural, political, economic, and literary. 

I found it striking and unusual that poetry features heavily. The book contains poems featuring Christ and written by a range of Latin American authors; and discussions of the influence of some of these poems. I found this surprising and fascinating. It highlights a significant cultural difference for me. I am not sure I have ever read a book about Western theology that discussed poetry, if at all. Furthermore, in wider Western society, beyond certain literary elites (cliques?), I do not think poetry has much influence, particularly at the level of politics or public intellectuals. In contrast, it seems that in Latin America, poets can be celebrities, public intellectuals, and have enough political influence that they can be perceived as a threat to governments, as was the case with Pablo Neruda.

Here are a few highlights from what I have read so far. In the era of colonial conquest,

[to the natives] Christ was presented as Lord and that acceptance of his lordship essentially meant submission to the church and the conquistadors...

the Catholic missionary effort during the sixteenth century was closely tied to the subjugation of the indigenous through military conquest.

...analysis of legislation imposed on the Indians shows that it juxtaposes civilisation and mission, a process based on the assumption that first, the Indian was to be civilized to become a "human", so that later he might become a "Christian." (page 35)

As the Catholic church became established there was significant syncretism, with Catholic rituals being combined with pagan ones.

Broadly, there have been two dominant images of Jesus, particularly through art. Jesus was a baby and Jesus died on a cross. His actual life and teaching received scant attention.

The Bible was banned by colonial and church authorities. But in the 1800s Bible distribution began through travelers and then foreign Protestant missionaries.

Argentinian theologian Jose Miguez Bonino describes the contours of the theology  that emerged from that era in his book Faces of Latin American Protestantism. He describes the results of his research as a thesis statement

that toward 1916 American missionary Protestantism was basically "evangelical" according to the model of an American evangelicalism of the “second awakening": individualistic, Christological-soteriological in a basically subjective key, with emphasis on sanctification. It had a genuine social interest, expressed in charity and mutual aid, but did not have a structural and political perspective save as it touched on the defense of its own liberty and the struggle against all discrimination. Therefore it tended politically to be liberal and democratic, but without sustaining that option in its faith, nor making it an integral part of its piety. (page 57)

I found this particularly interesting because it has certain similarities to the contours of the theology of many Western "evangelical" churches today.

John Mackay (1889-1983) was a Scottish Presbyterian who worked from 1916 to 1936 in Latin America as a missionary, before becoming President of Princeton Theological Seminary. His book, The Other Spanish Christ, is still in print. He gave many lectures to university students, teaching on the parables of Jesus. Central themes were the kingdom of God, the love of God, and the ethical heart of Jesus's teaching. Commenting on the parable of the good Samaritan, Mackay concludes

Something more is needed for the spirit of the Good Samaritan to be translated into the philanthropy required in a time 20 centuries after Christ lived, sporadic charity is not sufficient, nor even systematic charity for the relief of suffering. The primary responsibility of Good Samaritans today is to show their passion for humanity in working toward the disappearance of the avoidable causes of suffering, this is much more difficult charity, more complicated and more prosaic than direct help to the needy. It will always be necessary to have oil and wine to dress the wounds and arms unfortunate travellers, but more necessary the charity that studies the problem caused by cruel, hands been in sensitivity of capable of witnessing human pain without feeling any responsibility. (page 62)

In 1929 the third continental congress of evangelicals was held in Havana. This was chronicled by Gonzalo Baez Camargo. It was noted that the Catholic church was marked by "dogmatism without space for individual thought" that impelled curious minds into agnosticism. Furthermore, the Catholic church had retreated "from the social and spiritual needs of our people." Escobar states "the diagnosis is direct and coincides made by Catholic theologians themselves decades later", quoting Baez-Camargo.

The church interpreted the kingdom of heaven as a state of blessing in the life to come and not as a kingdom of charity, fraternity, and justice in this earthly world that we live in. And while preaching resignation and hope to the unhappy and oppressed, they forgot to preach justice and love to the pitiless owners and capitalist slave traders. They did not do anything effective to improve social conditions and to guide a wise evolution towards the liberation of the enslaved masses. (page 65)

In his own writings, much of it in newspaper columns, Baez-Camargo emphasised the humanity of Jesus, a personal relationship with Christ as the starting point for the Christian life, appropriation of the redeeming death of Jesus, and a theology of experienced grace.

For in effect intellectual dogmatism, that is, a dominant preoccupation with mere orthodoxy, usurps the gospel at a deep level. It makes salvation consist not of the redemptive work of Christ, which believers accept for themselves, personally by faith, but rather of a comprehensive and sworn consent to a system of theological formulas. For the person of the living and cherished Christ it substitutes a beautiful, compact, consistent creed about Christ. And thus it proclaims that what saves is not to believe in Christ but to have orthodox beliefs about Christ. (page 75). 

And that brings us back to poetry. In 1949, Baez-Camargo began to "the evangelical mark on Hispano-American poetry."

I am only one-third of the way into the book. So far it nicely highlights the interaction of culture, history, and theology. Each of us lives in a particular context and we can learn a lot from comparisons of how Christ is viewed in different contexts. What is universal? What is particular?

A beautiful introduction to the book is by Escobar himself.

Theology on the street

 Life can be messy, painful, difficult, and disorienting. No one is immune from the breakdown of relationships, health, or finances. This is true even for upper-middle-class Australians such as myself, who have access to significant resources (social networks, education, wealth, stable government, ...). If a person wants to follow Jesus how do they make sense of their life and find the spiritual resources to keep going? What role does theology play? And how might one connect the messiness of life to theology, to what might be taught (and modeled) at church, the Bible, and different Christian traditions?

Answering such questions is some of what Theology on Tap Brisbane is about. A  book, Pub Theology, recently published; each of the twenty-two chapters is based on a presentation by the author at Theology on Tap. The common theme is that each speaker was requested to reflect on their life experience in light of scripture and their own theological tradition. Most speakers are "lay" people, i.e. they are not clergy, academic theologians, or doing full-time paid work in Christian organisations. They have spent most of their working lives in the "real" world. Many have a Ph.D.

The book has received very positive reviews and endorsements from diverse reviewers. See for example, a review by Tim Dickau. 

Hard copies are available at Book Depository and Amazon sells a Kindle version.

This week for our theology reading group we discussed the book. Most members of the reading group also have a chapter in the book. Mine is based on a talk Theology of Weakness, that I gave in March 2019.

What are my reflections on the book? 

It was great to read the chapters, both those based on talks I had heard and talks that I missed because I was overseas at the time (pre-covid).

There is an emotional "rawness" in many chapters. Authors are honest and vulnerable about their own personal failures and struggles. There is depth, both intellectual and spiritual, to the theological reflections on the authors' own life narratives. There is a sincere and earnest struggle to connect their story to God's story. 

Life can be tragic, confusing, messy, and painful. There are no simple answers and solutions, theological or practical, to the complex questions and problems that life throws up.  Authors do not resort to platitudes, escapism, denial, relativism, despair, nihilism, cynicism, or bitterness. 

In some sense, the book presents neither a modernist or postmodernist perspective on the Christian life. Modernists will focus on certitude,  doctrine, reason. Little room is given for diversity of perspective and experience. Postmodernists will focus on ambiguity, diversity, and experience. the "validity" of each person's version of their story and affirm whatever interpretation they wish to put on that story. As a whole, the book affirms individuals' stories and experiences while putting those stories in dialogue with a specific normative narrative, that of the Bible and the work and presence of the Triune God in the world.

The book is powerful testimony that theology is relevant to all of life. Theology is not owned and defined by academics, pastors, or denominations. Theology is not just private or spiritual. Theology is and should be public. It has something to say about big issues such as the immigrant experience, family life, climate change, mental health, poverty, trauma, indigenous issues, and social justice. 

In life, some of the authors have been "activists" who have constructively engaged with our broken world in a way that is driven by their theology. But, their theology has also been modified or reconstructed based on the experience of their activism. I found those chapters particularly inspiring. They include those working with reconciliation following the Rwandan genocide, living in a slum in South Asia, care for children dying of cancer (and their families), indigenous health, ...

Life experiences are a powerful force, for better or worse, in shaping people's theology. This book is testimony to that and for me stimulates me to think more about the relationship between experience, tradition, scripture, and reason. One way of relating them is the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, Another is the tricycle promoted by Richard Rohr. I hope to come back to the complexities of this issue later.

Converting the presentations into book chapters does miss one significant dimension to the live presentations. A book is static, not dynamic. After each presentation, small groups discuss the presentation and compose written questions for the presenter. The presenter then responds to these questions. This element of processing and dialogue is obviously missing from the book. I wonder if it might be captured by a short response from another author and then a final word from the author.

What might be ways forward that build on this book?

Theology of Tap is characterised by hospitality. It is an open space that aims to be welcoming and neutral. It is not sectarian, as reflected in the diverse backgrounds and perspectives of both presenters and attendees. Can there be more room for dialogue, debate, and constructive criticism, including with non-Christians?

Most presenters, attendees, and authors are in the demographic of fifty to eighty years old. There is a lot of life experience and hard-earned wisdom. How can this be passed on to the younger? And what can the elders learn from the younger?

What is Christology?

 Christology is the area of theology that considers who Jesus Christ is. Is/was Jesus human, divine, or both? Theology can be abstract and academic (and esoteric), but it is really just discussions about God. Theology can also be very practical as what we believe often shapes how we live, for better or worse. Everyone has a theology, even atheists. Atheists have a particular view of God and choose not to believe in that God. For many people, their theology may be implicit rather than explicit. 

Similarly, Christology is just discussions about who Jesus is. Again everyone has a Christology. There are many dimensions to and expressions of Christology. The New Testament presents Jesus as both human and divine, an eternal being, Son of the Father, without sin, Lamb of God, compassionate, teacher, healer, miracle worker, King of Kings, King of the Jews, carpenter, Messiah, Saviour, Prince of Peace, the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, mediator between God and humans, ... How does one bring all these different dimensions into relationship with one another? Where are there harmonies, tensions and inconsistencies? There are decisions to be made about relative importance and emphasis. That is what Christology is about.

The early church got itself in all sorts of intellectual and political knots as it tried to precisely define how Jesus could be both fully human and fully God, and how Jesus, the Son of God, was related to the Father and the Holy Spirit (i.e. the Trinity). Did the Spirit proceed from the Father or the Son? ... These issues were "resolved" in the early creeds. Some of the controversies pivoted around a single letter, in the case of homoousios vs. homoiosious [same substance vs. similar substance]. The Father and the Son are of the same [similar] substance. The former was adopted in the Nicene Creed [325 A.D.] after much debate. The two terms only differ by an "i" or "iota", the smallest object in the Greek alphabet. Amusingly, this may be the origin of the phrase, "it makes not one iota of difference."

Christology can be (and has been) formulated from many different perspectives, including theological, historical, sociological, political, philosophical, cultural, credal, ... Again, there are questions of emphasis. And, does (and should) the language used, and the approach taken vary depending on the historical and cultural context?

These issues are on my mind because as part of the Logos and Cosmos Initiative, I am reading a wonderful book, In Search of Christ in Latin America: From Colonial Image to Liberating Savior, by Samuel Escobar. I am looking forward to discussing it with my Latin American colleagues. In some future posts, I will discuss some of the ideas in the book.