I read your book…we should get coffee soon.
That was over a year ago.
Hey! At some point we’re going to get that coffee!
Yeah…totally, let me know!
Concerned Cups of Coffee
Why New Theological Language Shouldn't Scare Us as Much as it Does
For as long as anyone can remember our theological language has been in a holding pattern—the ways in which we speak about God closely guarded to avoid offending the sensitive pallets of the theological elite. Language has a way of keeping control of a reigning narrative—if we only ever think about God in these prescribed ways, then we never have to give up power or allow this or that kind of person into the inner circle to sit at the table and be given attention. This is why in certain circles there is only one approved translation of the Bible and all others are suspect if not outright preached against as demonic—it’s easier to control the narrative when everyone is reading and thinking the same words to which we provide the proper reading. If this has been your experience then you like the rest of us have been a part of a faith community. I don’t care how nice the people are, if every single man, woman and child describes a dollar store Jesus in the same exact language, then we have a deep theological problem on our hands—we don’t actually know God.
Did God Really Say…
The Serpent’s question to Eve in the garden is where most expositors go when defending their chosen interpretations. God really said something and so we better repeat it word for word or else we will be susceptible like Eve was to temptation! After all, the best way to not sin is to hide God’s Word in your heart!1
There are innumerable occasions in scripture where we could point if we were so bothered to make a list of instances we have used: Jesus is the Word; the Logos! Pay attention to the words in red. Hide God’s Word in your heart! Pray this prayer! Read this passage! One would be forgiven for thinking we are part of some kind of coven of warlocks and witches the way we treat the scriptures so incantationally.
God in the Wild
12They shall wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD,
but they shall not find it.Amos 8:12
It’s curious that in the days of the Prophet Amos, he told of how there was to be a day (in his day) when the people of God would wander to and fro seeking the Word of the God but never find it. I wonder if this is because they expected the Word to come through the Temple and the Priests and the usual prophets, when instead it would come via the wayside country prophet and in the back hedges of society where they never thought to check. These sources would be uncouth, on the low theological side of the spectrum and concerned (as Amos was) with whom God was concerned.
4Hear this, you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
5saying, “When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
6that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff of the wheat?”Amos 8:4-6
Wild Theology
I am growing ever more enamoured with instances of wild theology; the ways in which regular everyday people find to describe the things of God. Often times they may not realise they are describing a spiritual experience but it is at the headwaters of their spiritual journey. There are those who are unaware of Church history or the standing theological lexicon and so give fresh language to what they are experiencing, but there are also those who are intimately familiar and choose to put that familiarity to use in choosing new theological language; new examples from nature, new theologies of what the rest of creation may be trying to tell us about the Eternally Powerful Divine One.
Dr.
recently gave us a three part series on reality that culminated in an essay on mycelial growth as it relates to a burgeoning theology of the human body; it is beautiful wild theology with real risk and reward for working out her salvation with fear and trembling. It is my sneaking suspicion that if more people were doing this kind of work we would see the theological world bloom with rich examples and language to refresh a new generation’s spiritual imagination.Concerned Cups of Coffee
However, people of the old lexicon start to worry when they can’t understand what you’re saying about God. It might be heresy…I’m not sure—better get Dan back on track here with a come-to-Jesus meeting. This usually happens at the start of your journey, but by the time you’re 10 years in those who are devoted to the old lexicon (usually in pursuit of defending the faith against old heresies) will have given you up for a lost cause. They won’t know what you are because the way in which you speak about God is so fresh and different. It’s personal, not a jot or tittle of Latin in it, no reference to the old ideas or words and confound it if we didn’t spend a god-awful amount of money learning these words just to have the next generation change it! The reality is that we are currently spending our lives so backlogged in learning the lexicon that we never engage with their ideas in any meaningful way for our time and place. The anxiety that sits at the top of our chests at the notion that we may have wasted our entire education catching up to something with which we can never catch up.
White Mastery
So our solution is rather simple. Stop theologizing. I mean come on, after 2000 years, we must have a generally good idea about the concepts of the faith right? Why keep working out our salvation with fear and trembling when we could work it out with copy and paste? Why reach for Christ whom we cannot attain when we could reach for Calvin and attain him rather easily in our lifetime? Why reproduce Christ, when we could reproduce Paul, or David, or Augustine in a matter of 8 to 15 years of schooling? The examples change, because of White Mastery. White men are the only ones really allowed to work out our salvation with fear and trembling—to push the boundaries and create new examples who are essentially composites of the old ones. Why choose between Calvin, Augustine or Turretin when you could reproduce Pastor W.K. Winnifred III2 who is already the holy trinity of examples for today!
I hope you have come to see the utter foolishness, hopelessness and lovelessness of this path. It is my hope that you will read this and pursuit love wherever you find it and in so doing be strengthen in your love, faith and hope in the gospel.
3 Suggested Applications
Reproduce Christ Alone
We do not walk after anyone but Christ, and the ones we do follow after we follow as they follow Christ and where Christ leads us is to lay down our lives for one another in pursuit of unity in the love, faith and hope of the gospel. As soon as we copy and paste another’s faith, we begin following them in another direction than where Christ is leading. It doesn’t matter how much time passes, there is not and will never be a composite Christian worthy of following because none of the people whose theology composes them were worth following in their own right. We walk after, become and reproduce Christ alone.Do Not Confuse Faith or Hope for Love
This essay pertains to our faith, but don’t confuse faith and hope which are passing away3 with love which never ends. The late stages and end result of becoming like Christ are not an image of someone who knows all the right things to say and can win every argument and is never down or discouraged but one in whom the light of love never dims; one who cannot be met without exposing some darkness within us and eliciting surrender and repentance in the dark corners of our souls to the light of love which casts out all darkness. Becoming like Christ is a matter of a violent increase in love where the world looks on and says, surely they have been with Jesus.
Work Out Your Own Salvation with Fear and Trembling
With all of this said; no one can do this for you. This work is a work of the Spirit and you. Call and response. Movement and Obedience. There is a deep knowing in obedience that is difficult to reproduce into words on a page or in a moment during a concerned cup of coffee, but do it anyway. At first it will be difficult to give an answer, but as you become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit, God will move you to say and write things that will surprise even you. God uses these moments to teach us as much as to explain to others how God is moving in our lives.
Read: to memorize out of context verses tied to key talking points, catechisms and questions.
Not a real person.
1 Cor. 13