The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesiological Theology

January 18, 2010 by Gerald Hiestand

Biblical Warrant for Pastors Serving as Wider Theologians?

I’m working on a follow-up essay to my taxonomy paper, focusing more tightly this time on the notion of  “wider theologians” — those particular theologians who serve the theological needs of the wider ecclesia (think Jenson, Vanhoozer,  Hodge, Bavinck,  Pannenberg, Franke, etc.).  The pressing question of the paper is, “Who should serve as the church’s wider theologians?” Currently our wider theologians reside almost exclusively in the academy. Historically, they resided in our churches. Does it matter?

If you’ve followed the SAET for any length of time, you’ll know that we advocate for a pastor-theologian model that places a high importance on writing. And the reason we do so is because we believe orthodox theology lost an important ecclesial dimension when it moved all of its wider theologians to the academy. Thus our vision for the pastor-theologian is to pull together a group of pastors who desire to return a distinctly ecclesial voice to orthodox theological reflection. Toward this end, much of my apologetic for the SAET mission has been based on social location and historical precedent.

But lately I’ve been giving a good deal of thought to the Scriptural warrant for such a position. Does the Bible mandate who is responsible for guarding the apostolic kerygma? Do our Scriptures inform us about who should don the mantle of the wider theologian? Our current ecclesial context readily agrees that we pastors are responsible for providing theological guidance for our own local congregations. But when it comes to providing theological guidance to the broader church we loose all sense of responsibility and abdicate to the academy. I’m increasingly convinced that the Bible does indeed dictate who bears the ultimate responsibility for the theological health of the church — and it’s not the academy.

Do you see any biblical justification for the thesis that the pastoral community — as a whole — is responsible for providing theological oversight to the wider church? In short, does the New Testament explicitly look to the clergy to serve as wider theologians to the whole church? If so, where do you see this?

Categories: Pastor-theologian | Wider Theologians