GENEralities

Ever since I started writing these pieces for The Sower I’ve wondered about the title. To me, Theological Reflections suggests erudite, rather technical, writings on things like the Atonement or the Trinity. I am more interested in exploring how we can live out our faith this Eastertide as followers of Jesus in Southern Alberta at the beginning of the 21st century. So, here are some reflections on the subject of
theological reflections.

The word Reflections is good. I can reflect. I enjoy it, in fact.

Theological, however, is more complicated. On one level its meaning is very simple—from the Greek: God-talk, something anyone can do. I can do it, too. I enjoy talking to God, and I enjoy learning to listen to God. I also enjoy talking about and hearing about God.

On another level, the word theological smacks of academic ivory towers and big words. That reminds me of seminary days. When I began my first seminary theology course, I had to read a book, the title of which I forget (it had a green cover, I think), written by someone who I can remember but who shall remain nameless. It took me an hour and a half to read the first ten pages—and that with the aid of a dictionary. I can’t remember any of it. It was my first experience of what Eugene Peterson describes as “the bloodless abstractions of theology.” A Jesuit once quipped, “A year of theology causes loss of faith—a year of philosophy, you lose your mind.” I survived a year of philosophy in my early university years, mind reasonably intact. Seminary theology didn’t make me lose my faith, but neither was it strengthened. The course had interesting bits but I found it hard to make connections with real life and my experience of Jesus. Academic theology for me was not an untrammeled joy. I was ordained with a rather jaundiced view of it.

In The Joyful Christian, CS Lewis writes of having someone tell him that theology was nothing but scribblings compared to meeting God in a desert night under the stars—my seminary sentiments exactly, only better put. But then Lewis, who I respect a great deal, challenged my unenthusiastic attitude by arguing that there is a real need for what he calls good, plain, old-fashioned theology because it is the map which allows us to go somewhere with our experiences of God. “You will not get to eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music,” he writes, “Neither will you get anywhere looking at maps without going to sea. Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.”

There was the rub, I now realize. My experience of academic theology did not equip me to go anywhere or do anything with my experience of God.

The Reverend Chris Pemberton, Vicar of St Mary Bredin, Canterbury, Kent, one of the gifted New Wine teachers from the UK, was just in town to do some teaching on team-building and leadership. Among other things, he pointed out that before we do anything as a church like starting up a new ministry, or renovating an old one (before we “go to sea” in Lewis’ terms) we need a theology for it. Good, plain theology will be the map that shows us where our destination is, and how best to get there. Without it, we risk losing our way.

Where do we find a good, plain theology, I ask myself? The Bible is where. Why? Because in the midst of all its wonderful stories, awkward quirks and mystery the Bible brings Jesus to us—way, truth and life. Since Jesus is alive, the Bible is, as the writer of the letter to the Hebrews wrote, living and active with the original and definitive God-talk for our here-and-now. Good, plain theology is about Jesus, God’s living Word, the man God “talked” into being once and for all.

Jesus is risen. How can we southern Albertan followers of Jesus live that out this Eastertide? Simply by doing something with our experiences of God—by being living, breathing, Theological Reflections ourselves. ‘Tis the season to be joyful, God-talking, Jesus-reflectors beaming the radiance of the Risen Christ into the dark corners of the lives of the people around us. Alleluia!

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