387 - The Person Behind the Theology

The Person Behind the Theology

EXACTLY fifty years ago, the first series of articles on "How My Mind Has Changed in the Past Ten Years" appeared in The Christian Century. This is an anniversary worth noting because, for one thing, the person of the preacher and the theologian seemed at the time of central and crucial importance. In contrast, fifty years later, with two or three exceptions, contemporary theology and preaching seem abstract and impersonal.

I

The theology of the 'thirties carried a self-conscious personal signature that today would appear strange and subjective. The Century series of thirty-five articles (from Jan. 18 through Nov. 8, 1939) were as much autobiographical as theological. Most of the contributors wrote at some length about where they had come from, where they were now, and where they hoped to be tomorrow. Many of the names would now be unfamiliar, but the series included John C. Bennett, Georgia Harkness, Reinhold Niebuhr, John A. Mackay, and James Luther Adams. In addition to these names associated with theological education, there were several well-known pulpiteers, such as George A. Buttrick, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Halford E. Luccock, Peter Marshall, Norman Vincent Peale, Fulton Sheen, and Ralph W. Sockman. (Billy Graham and Martin Luther King, Jr. were not yet on the scene, and, apart from Georgia Harkness, there were no publicly prominent women preachers.)

With only a few exceptions (Edward Scribner Ames, "Liberalism Confirmed," and Clarence E. Macartney's conservative assertion about "Steady Faith"), nearly all the invited contributors acknowledged that they were in the process of change, and they all seemed eager to disclose their personal theological confessions.

The Century articles were by no means unique with this person centered colophon. The 'thirties was a time of analyzing trends, and this usually took the form of commenting on important and influential personages in the theological news. Some of these trend manuals: Otto A. Piper, Recent Developments in German Protestantism (1934);

 

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Vergiliusa Ferm, Contemporary American Theology (Vol. 1, 1932; Vol. 2, 1933); Edwin E. Aubrey, Present Theological Tendencies (1936); Walter M. Horton, Contemporary English Theology (1936) and Contemporary Continental Theology (1938); Henry Nelson Wieman and Barnard E. Meland, American Philosophies of Religion (1936); and Henry Sloane Coffin, Religion Yesterday and Today (1940).

Ferm's two volumes were subtitled "Theological Autobiographies," and the Wieman and Meland volume with its academic title recounted the theological journeys, changes, and self-interpretations of more than fifty prominent names. Horton's two volumes grew out of his own search for new truth, as he told about it in several other volumes and in somewhat tedious detail. Coffin's reflections were first given as summer school lectures in 1939 and were prefaced with the comment that these were "personal" reminiscences. Let us look in somewhat more detail at one more example of the person behind the theology of the 'thirties.

II

Edwin Lewis (1881-1959) was an American Methodist in the Continental Reformation tradition, having been schooled on George C. Cell's The Rediscovery of John Wesley (1935). For many years, Lewis was the ruling spirit at Drew Theological Seminary, a craggy, austere type who influenced whole generations of students.

In his Century article (June 14, 1939), Lewis titled his change over the past decade as "From Philosophy to Revelation." He was moving, he wrote, from a kind of religious humanism to a fresh appreciation of the givenness of faith. His searching, by the way, was quite independent of what was happening on the Continent. He knew about Bartha and others, but the motivation for his radical change came from the Bible. Somewhat against his better judgment, he accepted the position of supervising editor of The Abingdon Bible Commentary (1929), a one-volume reference resource of nearly 1500 pages. What this meant by way of editing, Lewis tells in his own words:

Besides working through many of the manuscripts, I did all the proof reading all the second galleys, two separate sets of sheets, and final proof. I verified every Scripture reference in the entire work, and inserted, either in the manuscripts or in the proofs, practically all the cross-references. Then I went through the Commentary a fifth time and prepared the Index which runs to 42 double-column pages.

This, Lewis, tells us, was how he "discovered the Bible." Living with the Scriptures in this editorially exacting way for three years forced him to take "revelation" seriously. Shortly thereafter, in 1934, he published a book with the title, A Christian Manifesto. It was a descriptive but personal affirmation of the main doctrines of the Christian faith. The book grew out of some lectures given at Drew. Near the end of the course, as Lewis tells it, a student came to him and said: "Professor, I

 

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think that something has happened lately deep down inside you." To which Lewis replied: "I did not deny it."

III

A quantum leap into our own times leaves most of the theology of the 'thirties behind us, out of sight, out of mind, and mostly forgotten. In the 'thirties, the atmosphere was charged with "big names" of well-known theologians and preachers, and the budding ecumenical movement looked to many like the wave of the future.

With only two or three exceptions, the personal dimension trademark of the 'thirties has also faded into history. In the meantime, the development of religious studies departments in colleges and universities has in many ways overshadowed specifically Christian theological education in seminaries and divinity schools. The academic study of religion, by definition and common consent, is a research discipline dedicated to examining the sources and the plurality of options. It is critical but not judgmental; interdisciplinary but not opinionated; rigorous about comparative analysis but not committed to any particular religious conviction. Under such rubrics, the person of the theologian is occluded with footnoted attributions about what others think.

If the person behind the theology tends to be hidden from view in religious studies, in the exceptions to which we have already alluded, the person is very much involved. What are these exceptions? They include feminist, black, and liberation theologies. These are advocacy theologies in which personal investment overrides the detached, impersonal pursuits of academic studies.

Such theologies involve, of course, academic study. (They already provide ample resource material for Ph.D. dissertations.) But those who are actively and directly involved in these theologies have a personal and often autobiographical stake reminiscent of the theology of the 'thirties. Who I am, where I've come from, and where I'm going-these intimate indicators inform and undergird feminist, black, and liberation theologies of our time. This personal commitment to a cause not only adds, as it were, a preface or postscript to what everyone else is doing in theology. It radically shifts priorities in theology so that the special involvement becomes the lens through which biblical exegesis, doctrinal formulation, and social action must be seen and refocused.

Perhaps in every age this personal theological signature emerges alongside more dispassionate and abstract theologies. Augustine's Confessions must be interpreted with reference to his person, whereas the christological debates and creedal statements of the time seem impersonal and propositional. The person of Francis of Assisi seems as significant, theologically, as the majestic system of Thomas Aquinas whose personal profile leaves much to the imagination. In our own time, the continuing witness of Bonhoeffera, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther

 

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King, Jr., and Mother Teresa, just to pick names at random, emerges out of awareness that who they are is as important as what they say or do.

IV

In the shift and shuffle of the past fifty years, what has happened to the preachers? They still write books on homiletical meditations and spiritual self-help, but unlike the Century series in the 'thirties their names are not often associated with those of theologians and biblical scholars. They have few representatives among the professional academic societies, partly because the AAR and the SBL look askance at practical departments in seminaries. While it is true that more and more preachers and ministers enroll in continuing education seminars and many pursue the D.Min. degree, they are not widely known as scholars or as persons of dramatic presence, as were so many in the 'thirties.

It is surely a scandal of our times that the most visible preachers, the television evangelists, are also the most personally discredited. In the Oct. 15 issue of the Library Journal, William Griffin of Publishers Weekly lists a dozen current or forthcoming books dealing with ministers who have been involved in or confess to sexual escapades of various kinds.

And yet it surely must be said that ministers today are better educated and more effective as pastors than ever before. They have access to a wide variety of biblical commentaries, they take seriously their role as pastoral counselors, and they become involved in numerous community endeavors. The big names among the pulpiteers of the 'thirties were seldom known as caring pastors, readily available to troubled parishoners. If today the sermon has lost something of its central place in the life of the church, the personal side of ministry is more apparent and, perhaps, more important in the long run.

While it may be true that the pastoral ministry today is more person-oriented than, say, in the 'thirties, it still seems necessary to probe and provoke preachers to be more personally involved in theology itself. That does not only mean reading books and taking courses, but learning to take personal theological stands on current issues in culture and society so that they can be addressed and communicated theologically.

We think that a journal like THEOLOGY TODAY has a special mission to help preachers "keep theological." That was a major theme of discussion at a recent meeting of our Editorial Council with several local ministers invited to sit in on the sessions. At the time, it was noted that "the issue is how people who struggle to maintain integrity in ministry can be helped to live through and understand their work and experiences theologically instead of succumbing to a psychologized, sociologized, relativized, consumer-oriented culture." (See Jan. 1986, pp. 509-513.)

To revert to the preachers of the 'thirties who somehow learned for themselves the secret of "keeping theological," we may ask what it was that inspired them to be so articulate and eloquent. Could it be that they

 

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knew what they were against? They were all against flabby thinking, sentimental morality, myopic social justice, and innocuous theology.

Perhaps part of the problem of contemporary preaching is that we don't know how to identify our enemies. Peter Marshall, praying before the Congress in the 'thirties, dared to instruct our legislators, "Help us to stand for something lest we fall for anything." Sometimes protest, as in the Reformation, leads to profession. When we find it difficult to speak persuasively for goodness, truth, and beauty-to say nothing of the gospel of God's redemptive love in Jesus Christ-maybe we need to spend a little time identifying our enemies.

In the old but still useful Hasting's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (known to generations of students and researchers as HERE), if you look up "Truth," the entry says "See Error and Truth." Why not? The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount should remind us that biblical theology is a dialectic between negativities and affirmations.

Hugh T. Kerr