330 - The Laymen's Role In Theology

The Laymen's Role In Theology
By Mary McDermott Shideler

Laymen who theologize in public are becoming so numerous and so prominent that it is high time to raise questions about their nature, functions, and value. With depressing frequency, men and women whose competence in other disciplines has been established are invited to lecture on religious questions, and their opinions treated as if they were authoritative or even normative. Study courses in the relationships between Christianity and art, science, politics, and the like, are arranged with leaders chosen for their knowledge of art, science, politics, or whatever, but little or no regard for their background in Christian history or theology, or even in philosophic thinking. People who would not for a moment take the unsubstantiated word of a casual observer or a novice in their own technical fields, write books on the basis of their occasional excursions into the non technical suburbs of theology, in which they ignore, or scoff at, findings reached by scholars who have dedicated long years to the rigorous examination of those problems.

Now and then, criticisms are heard concerning the value of these performances-for example, it is asked whether the lay theologian is any more useful than the amateur surgeon, or any less dangerous to himself and others than the untrained airplane pilot. It is pointed out that some of these laymen, in their massive sincerity and sometimes fantastic naiveté, are filling their audiences with palatable snacks and so destroying the appetite for nourishing food. Others assiduously propagate false notions about Christianity by defending heresies or by attacking straw men. In contrast, it must be recognized that there are also lay theologians whose work has been of enduring value to the Faith and the Church, which leads to the hope-though faint, yet pursuing-that their blessing may in the long run outweigh the curse of the ignorant and the pernicious.

The current fashion for asking anyone and everyone for opinions on theological matters, and listening to their answers, will wear itself out in a few years, if only because intrinsically vapid and silly

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things do wear out. But the underlying problem that the fashion has revealed cannot be left to the dubious mercies of time. All men are rudimentary theologians. They possess an almost (perhaps entirely) ineradicable impulse to organize their experiences into a meaningful pattern. Not many people concern themselves seriously with this enterprise; those who do range from the obviously incompetent to such thoroughly grounded and highly disciplined laymen as C. S. Lewis and the late Dorothy L. Sayers, whose excellence is immediately apparent in everything that they write. These extremes raise few problems, either practical or theoretical. As usual, it is the throng in between that is ambiguous. Given the clear dangers, should professional theologians and Churches encourage lay theologians at all? What standards of competence can and should be applied to lay theologians by Churches or Church-related groups, in choosing speakers or discussion leaders or books for study? Have professional theologians any responsibilities toward their lay brethren?

I

It needs to be clearly understood at the beginning that what is in question is not the right to speak, but the duty to listen-sometimes the duty to not listen and to discourage others from listening. Bernard Baruch has correctly stated the norm: "Every man has the right to an opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts." Careless or deliberate falsification of facts-for example, as to how Christianity has historically been defined-should be considered adequate grounds for refusal to listen or to schedule a hearing. Program committees especially have a direct responsibility to inform themselves on the facts, in case the lecturers or writers under consideration lack any sense of shame, and the hearers or readers any discrimination. I have day-dreamed of a scientist or statesman delivering a speech on "What I Believe and Why," and concluding with the words: "No doubt I shall be asked if I am a Christian. I do not know, because I have never gotten around to investigating the subject, and I do not trust the rumors I have heard concerning it." But such honesty and accuracy are so rare that I wonder if they exist at all outside the dream.

It would not be reasonable to expect of the lay theologian the extensive and detailed information that is properly required of the

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professional. Formal training, with a teacher standing at one's elbow to correct personal idiosyncrasies and to guard the student against sins of omission, cannot be replaced by self-education or even informal guidance. But this does not mean that the layman must of necessity be uninformed or incompetent. So long as he can consult libraries, and has the temerity to make inquiries of recognized authorities, and is modest enough to learn, even the layman who is geographically isolated from centers of theological study can be reasonably sure that he is distinguishing fact from fiction, and can discover where the major gaps in his knowledge lie. Indeed, it is probably more important for him to realize clearly what he does not know, than to complete his knowledge, unless detailed information on a topic is demanded by the problem he is working on. Except under the most extraordinary circumstances, the layman cannot match the range or depth of competence of the professional. He can, and should, be meticulously accurate so far as he goes. For example, it is entirely legitimate for a crypto-Gnostic-a "spiritualizer"-to attack Christianity's materialism to his heart's content, no holds barred; it is not legitimate for him to identify Christianity with Gnosticism, because information on their irreconcilable differences is readily available in any standard reference work, and it is a crime against intellectual decency to by-pass what is obvious and at hand.

II

A besetting temptation of the layman in any field is his tendency to assume that none of the problems is more significant or more complex than he can grasp at his first meeting with it. He is apt to be satisfied with trivialities, incoherencies, and equivocations, and to be swift in defense of positions that are logically and practically untenable, with the assertion that they are workable and clear to him, so why all the bother? There is bother, and ought to be more of it, in order to counteract two prevailing notions: one, that anything goes in theology because it does not and cannot have intellectual standards; and two, that what a man believes is a private matter. If religion be defined as what man does with his solitariness, then Christianity is not a religion, because Christianity is concerned specifically with man's wholeness-intellect, emotion, spirit, body, when he is alone, in company, and in community-and with what God does to, for, and with man's wholeness. Therefore while logical coher-

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ence cannot be theology's summum bonus, so long as man's mind is intrinsic to his being, it will have a vital role in theology.

The lay theologian will seldom have the dialectical skill of the professional (by which I do not mean the ability to make debaters' points), or the command of detailed implications. But he can, and should, be able to see the bones of the problems, and thus be able to differentiate between central and peripheral issues, as well as between relevant and irrelevant evidence and argument. So much for a sketch of standards.

III

Turning to the possible functions of lay theologians: do they have anything of value to contribute to the theological enterprise, by virtue of their special position as laymen, apart from the plain-and plainly important-function of interpreting technical theology to other laymen? The two that I suggest are not unmixed blessings. They carry dangers as well as opportunities, and their worth depends in part upon whether the lay theologian in question has a fairly good background of knowledge and a reasonable capacity and inclination to think, as contrasted with trading expressions of opinion.

The first of these is freshness of approach and outlook. Theology has suffered not only from the ignorance of practitioners in other fields, but also from theologians' ignorance of science, art, and indeed daily living. Theological discourse has been markedly enriched by such specialists as Dr. Harold K. Schilling and Dr. Paul Tournier, who have stated basic concepts from their own disciplines in terms that theologians can take hold of, while refraining with scrupulous courtesy from any note implying that their experiences or theories must be relevant or must have a specific relevance to theology.

It is as improbable that a layman will turn up a new and significant theological principle as that a layman in a particular realm of science will produce a critically important principle therein. Be it noted, however, that this has happened in physics, in medicine, and in a number of other sciences. Occasionally something good -and new-comes even out of Nazareth.

Often, of course, laymen do not know what is and what is not new. Notoriously they go around proclaiming the originality of views (whether orthodox, heretical, or lunatic) that have been standard for centuries. This can be infuriating or funny but is not particularly

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important except as it stimulates or discourages an appropriate response. But ignorance is a double-edged blade, and the other edge is sharper. Not recognizing genuine originality or potential gifts, laymen can fail to develop them. It is impossible to calculate what is lost when a natural talent or a jeweled insight is thrown away because it is never seen by anyone competent to appraise it. Certainly some professional theologians do keep an eye on the products of laymen and take endless trouble to foster what appears to be hopeful. It is with the most profound gratitude that I testify to this. But might we have had another theologian of the stature of Unamuno or Kierkegaard if Charles Williams had been taken seriously as a theologian during his lifetime? We shall never know. And today who is forsaking theology for lack of heartening attention? Anybody? Nobody? Who can tell?

In our specialized world it is inevitable that specialists converse principally with each other-theologians, of course, with each other and God. As one good consequence (among many), this enables standards of competence to be established and enforced, and protection maintained against the avalanche of erratic nincompoops that would otherwise engulf the competent. But the standards that properly exclude foolishness can also be used improperly, to exclude originality. Living thought, like a living organism, needs sustenance from outside itself. Ideas cannot feed on themselves and live. Theologians especially need this liaison with all that lies beyond their technical concerns because their ultimate domain is the whole of life. If they do not interchange information and ideas with particular provinces of their empire, their work becomes a sterile series of puzzles. Theology cannot live and grow without the nourishment obtained from other disciplines, and this is most easily procured by occasionally welcoming interested bystanders into its conversations.

IV

This brings me to my last and gravest point: the natural existentialism that can be the lay theologian's supreme contribution to theology, for good or for evil. He wants to join the conversation because his life and his death are totally involved in it. His intense concern grows out of immediate and personal needs generated by anger, despair, frustration, and the bewildering impact of exalted

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joy. Possibly he has undergone the incomparable experience of discovering that his heart-rending questions had also been asked by Paul and Augustine and Luther, and that their answers make sense to him. He is not alone but in the company of giants and they have initiated him into a new life.

Without doubt the professional is equally involved, but he has learned to live with uncertainties and qualifications and delays. His demands for immediate relevance are less insistent. Scholarly patience and detachment, however, can be pushed too far and lead into the temptations of pure speculation and over-specialization. Even theologians have been known to beat a subject to a meaningless pulp or to become so involved in long-range implications or microscopic variations that proportion is forfeited. These are dangers from which the layman's ignorance usually shields him. (It leaves him defenseless against over-simplification and fragmentation, but that is beside the immediate point.) Where the gap in training between professional and lay theologians is not too great, the layman's enthusiasm and his very impatience can supply an invaluable defense against excessive professionalism and thus assist in opening fresh paths toward authentically creative theological development.

This same natural existentialism can also vitiate the whole proceeding. "That only is truth that is truth for me" can be taken as "Until I grasp the truth, it is ineffectual in me," or as "Unless I find it true, it is not true," From the latter comes the common, and utterly maddening, broken chain of reasoning: "I am a Christian; I do not believe in the bodily resurrection; therefore that doctrine is neither true nor important to Christianity." Personal involvement can be corrupted into individual involvement, with its concurrent indifference to others, generalizations based on single cases, narrow range of interests, and its damnable pride that blithely writes off two thousands years of devoted study and intelligent belief inlet us say, the resurrection-as if it were the consequence of stupidity, gullibility, and the deliberate evasion of issues.

The defining characteristic of competence in the lay theologian is, I propose, willingness to enter the theological dialogue as a full participant. This means that he must be as passionate and as persistent in learning as in expressing himself, as deeply concerned with the truth for other persons (past and present) as for his own insights,

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and as just in admitting the force of criticism as in accepting praise. The lay theologian is here to stay; he is potentially an invaluable servant but a devastatingly bad master. With discipline and encouragement, he can be immeasurably productive. Left to his own devices-disregarded by professional theologians, not criticized because he is beneath their notice-he can wreak more damage than a millennium of persecution. His flame burns high; without nurture, it will flare out of control or subside into ashes. Either would be a tragedy for Christendom.