115 - Fifty Years Ago and Today

Fifty Years Ago and Today
By Hugh T. Kerr

ARE theologians, as persons, less interesting today than they were fifty years ago? A curious query, you may say. What does the theologian's personality have to do with theology, other than providing some incidental biographical background? But suppose we insist, as seems obvious enough, that who the person happens to be must have something to do with what the person thinks, writes, or says. Wouldn't that supply a clue to contemporary theology if we knew something about the kind of person who is doing theology?

The same would be true of teachers and preachers. Who is this person standing before this class, teaching by way of interpretation and criticism; who is this minister, preaching a sermon to this congregation of people? It isn't a frivolous question surely, for we mostly remember teachers who influenced us and preachers who moved us, not so much because of the content of what was said, but because they were persons of power and presence.

I

While doing some research recently on the general theme of "the person - behind - the - theology", it struck me that the 1930s were much more personally - oriented than is the case today. That seems odd.

Fifty years ago, it might be imagined, theologians, teachers, and preachers would have been less disclosive of their own persons and more concerned to let their articles, lectures, or sermons speak for themselves. And today, it might also be imagined, with all our subjective and person - oriented approach to everything, theologians, teachers, and preachers would project a personal profile easily identifiable with their theologies, lectures, and sermons. Not so. In fact, almost completely the reverse.

In the 1930s, my own formative theological decade, all the religious people seemed inordinately eager to talk about themselves, where they were yesterday, where now, and where they hoped to be tomorrow. Theologians, teachers, and preachers were very much aware, as I look back on it, of who they were and how they were personally involved in their articulated ideas.

Let us look at three illustrations of this person - behind - the - theology

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fifty years ago in the mid - thirties, the decade that began with the Great Depression and ended with the start of World War II.

(a) Several widely - read volumes on the then, contemporary theology appeared between 1932 and 1938, for example, Vergilius Ferm, Contemporary American Theology (2 vols., 1932, 1933); Henry Nelson Wieman and Bernard E. Meland, American Philosophies of Religion (1936); Walter Marshall Horton, Contemporary English Theology (1936) and Contemporary Continental Theology (1938). There were others, for this was a time when many were analyzing trends.

The interesting thing about these books, as we look back, was the personal equation. Ferm's books were subtitled "Theological Autobiographies", and the Wieman and Meland big book with its academic title recounted the theological journeys, changes, and self - interpretations of its more than fifty famous names. Horton's two volumes grew out of his own search for new truth, and in every succeeding book and article he told us, in almost tedious detail, where he was now and where he expected to be tomorrow.

(b) In the last years of the thirties but retrospectively covering the whole decade, The Christian Century, under the creative and vigorous editorship of Charles Clayton Morrison, began a series of articles on "How My Mind Has Changed". The series ran throughout the year during 1939 and included thirty - five first - person self - appraisals for virtually every shade of opinion.

Subsequent series in the Century, every decade since, never quite measured up to this first series. Here, as if following a theme - song, everyone involved wrote of a personal pilgrimage from one place to another in search of greater truth. With hardly any exception, everyone's mind was changing, and everyone seemed eager to rush into print with these true theological confessions.

Karl Barth was, of course, the catalytic agent, forcing theologians, teachers, and preachers to reassess the meaning of the Gospel and the real purpose of the church in the world. But his was not the only urgent voice, and there is no escaping the pervasive ferment of the times.

(c) Included in the Century series were several eminent preachers who were as much known for their writings as for their sermons. The list of nationally known pulpiteers in the thirties is impressive and, for today, somewhat intimidating. It would include: Oscar Blackwelder, George A. Buttrick, Clovis Chappell, Harry Emerson Fosdick, James G. Gilkey, Teunis E. Gouwens, Charles E. Jefferson, Edgar DeWitt Jones, E. Stanley Jones, Gerald Kennedy, Harris E. Kirk, Halford E. Luccock, Peter Marshall, Robert McCracken, J.V. Moldenhawer, Joseph Fort Newton, Norman Vincent Peale, George C. Pidgeon, Paul E. Scherer, Fulton Sheen, Joseph R. Sizoo, Ralph W. Sockman, John Timothy Stone, Ernest F. Tittle, George W. Truett. (Billy Graham and Martin Luther King, Jr. were not yet on the scene, and regrettably there were no

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prominent women, though we should note that the United Church of Canada began to ordain women in 1936.)

Most of these preachers in the 'thirties presented to their congregations and the public in general strong, personal, distinctive personalities. They were definitely outstanding with dramatic presence. Some were handsome and photogenic, such as Mark Matthews and Ralph Sockman; some were superb expositors, such as George Buttrick and Peter Marshall; and some swayed their audiences by the sheer power of their homiletical persuasion, such as Fosdick with his squeaky voice or Harris Kirk whose physical shape was on the order of a Mack truck.

II

If, now, we jump the half - century into our own day, what do we find? The person - behind - the - theology seems curiously hidden, obscure, occluded. Why curiously? Because this is the age of personal disclosure, intimate talk shows, pastoral care, going with one's feelings, career counseling, family therapy, first - name sharing, consciousness raising, finding oneself, and the limitless expressions of the new spirituality in subjective, mystical, and privatistic terms.

But today's theology is certainly not informed by all this personal investment, nor is the teaching of biblical and doctrinal subjects, nor yet the sermons preached Sunday after Sunday from our pulpits.

Compared to the mobile, pilgrimage mood of the 'thirties, we seem a one - dimensional, static generation. We hardly know where our theologians have been, personally, how they correlate their own autobiography with their hermeneutical principles, or where for whatever reason they would like to be tomorrow. Teachers teach subjects and become adept at comparative academic analysis, all the while hiding themselves behind their specialized disciplines. Preachers preach, but there are few nationally - known dramatic pulpit presences among us, except for the flamboyant TV media - personalities.

When I tried to suggest recently to a group of local pastors in a continuing education seminar that their own personal anxieties might determine what they preached about, the response was mostly evasive. They all agreed with Phillips Brooks' definition that preaching is the bringing of truth through personality. But they couldn't handle the reverse possibility that preaching is the bringing of personality through truth. They refused to talk about themselves as they related numerous instances of pastoral counseling with their troubled parishioners.

III

There is, happily, other evidence that some these days are beginning to take seriously the implications of the person - behind - the - theology. Again, let us look at three illustrations.

(a) As a long - time member of the American Theological Society, I always look forward to the papers, issued in advance of the annual meetings, hoping there will be something publishable for THEOLOGY

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TODAY. At the moment, I'm sitting on two papers, one by Clark H. Pinnock of McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, with the title "How I Use Tradition in Doing Theology". And the other is by Letty M. Russell of Yale Divinity School on the subject "The Role of Scriptures in My Theology".

The "I" in Pinnock's title and the "My" in Russell's represent, so I think, something new in formal academic papers. Pinnock tells us at the start that he writes as a conservative Baptist Protestant, and Russell tells us that her developed biblical method stems from her involvement in feminist theology.

Considering the usual impersonality and derivative format of most such papers, as for example those presented at the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (AAR, SBL, SSSR), these attempts at a deliberately personalized approach come as a refreshing and promising innovation.

(b) It must be a dreadful assignment to write a weekly wit column. Martin Marty of the Century deserves "A" for effort for his M.E.M.O. pieces. He's perhaps not in the same league as his predecessor, Halford E. Luccock, and for straight, chuckling satire, it's hard to beat Art Buchwald or Russell Baker.

Recently Martin Marty, putting aside his jester's cap and wearing his heart on his column, wrote three intimate, personal, and heart - moving reflections. One followed the death of his wife and the second shortly thereafter on the death of his mother. The third related the story of a Golden State Warrior basketball player who patiently held the band of a youthful hero - worshiper lying in a coma, the victim of an awful auto accident.

Deeply personal and afflicted, these three columns must rank among Martin's most appreciated writings. To be "with" someone, even by way of cold print, in their intense grief and sorrow, and to feel invited into an intimate family circle, is to experience a moving of the human spirit beyond the reaches of routine reporting or format academic discussion.

(c) Writing for colleagues in religion departments of colleges and universities, James W. Woelfel of the University of Kansas recently published an article in Encounter magazine with the title "The Personal Dimension in Theological Inquiry" (Vol. 42, No. 3, Summer, 1981, pp. 225 - 233). What he had to say applies also to theologians, teachers, and preachers.

Over the years, I have repeatedly observed in my theological colleagues and myself the striking degree to which our different interests, perspectives, and methods reflect our personal character and training. It is a common observation, but I wonder whether we take it with the seriousness it deserves and really pursue its implications. I have pondered the matter a great deal and mentioned it on occasion to colleagues and others, but it seems to be one of those uncomfortable acknowledgments that we tend to suppress in our

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professional activity and interchange. I suspect that for the most part we simply do not know what to do with the recognition of these seemingly adventitious autobiographical elements in our pursuit of truth (p. 225).

Why, Woelfel asks, do we not include our personal signatures in what we teach, write about, and discuss? Perhaps it is because we like to think of ourselves as objective seekers, as rational thinkers, as those who "cloak personal preferences and prejudices in a mantle of scholarship".

When I studied philosophy, so many years ago, one of my professors wrote a book with the title Who Am I? On display at the university book store, someone scrawled under the title "Who cares?" Glib and frivolous, no doubt. But today increasingly we do care. Furthermore, the person - behind - the - theology may just be more interesting than the theology itself.