The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesiological Theology

Ecclesial Theology Posts

• January 16, 2009

  Theology for the Church

  Eclessial theology needs to get over any inferiority complex it might have in the face of secular/academic theology.  Frankly, ecclesial theology has the potential to be more robust and theologically richer precisely because it’s not hemmed in by academic concerns and constraints. Edwards is a fine example of someone who wrote theology with the church in mind. He wasn’t trying to impress a bunch of secular academicians. If Edwards tried publishing his Freedom of the …

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• January 13, 2009

  Review of My WTJ Article

  Eric Redmond has a nice review of my recent Westminster Theological Journal article. In the article, I argue that the eighteenth-century transition in North America from pastor-scholar to professor-scholar has resulted in the loss of a distinctly ecclesial voice in North American evangelical theology. There is, I contend, a need to return theological reflection and articulation back to the domain of the local church. Not every scholar needs to be a pastor, nor …

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• December 21, 2008

  More Thoughts on Ecclesial Theology

  The “Christian Living” genre should be included within the scope of ecclesial theology. In the past, I’ve been too dismissive at this point. There is a need for thoughtful, intelligent, theologically robust books on the Christian Life. Having said all of this however, I am not content for ecclesial theology to be limited to the Christian living genre.

  There is very much a need for pastors to reengage as serious theologians and scholars. But “Pastors writing …

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• December 13, 2008

  Pastor-theologian or Pastor-scholar?

  A few of the SAET board members and I have talked in the past about the best moniker for describing the sort of pastor the SAET envisions. “Pastor-scholar” is perhaps the better known term, but lately I’ve been thinking “pastor-theologian” is best. Here’s why:

  The term scholar tends to evoke images of someone mining data. The term theologian tends to evoke images of someone synthesizing the data. And even though all scholars should be theologians, and all theologians should be scholars, there’s a tendency to focus on one or the other. …

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  Categories: Ecclesial Theology

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• December 11, 2008

  Ecclesial Theology: Definition, Audience and Examples

  One of the ongoing difficulties we’ve had is defining ecclesial theology as something distinct from academic theology. I’ve written about that here, but wanted to flesh it out further. Here’s the SAET’s working definition, etc.

  Definition of Ecclesial Theology
  Ecclesial theology is theological reflection written to the wider believing community, for the good of the church catholic, and born out of pastoral/ecclesial concerns.

  The Subject Matter of Ecclesial Theology
  Ecclesial theology covers the entire Christian life—Christian …

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  Categories: Ecclesial Theology

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• December 6, 2008

  Pastor? Scholar? Why Choose?

  Athanasius, Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, Edwards—men whose enduring legacies have shaped the landscape of contemporary theological thought. Their reflection was deep, their intellect profound, their passion remarkable, and their influence vast. And these great thinkers not only impacted the intellectuals of their day, but were followed and admired by the laity as well. What was it about these men that established them as such significant theologians? What made them so effective in sparking revival, bolstering faith, and reforming the Church?

  Though diverse in their theologies, all of these men shared a common and significant mark of distinction—they were churchmen. They were bishops and preachers, pastors and founders of denominations, shepherd of souls. Though not all of them were formally pastors in the sense we understand today, their social, theological, and intellectual life was inseparably woven into the fabric of parish ministry. They were practitioners as much as theologians. Living among the people for whom they wrote and thought, the press and weight of parish life drove the questions that their theology sought to answer. And they were loved by their people because they resided among them, and because the questions that panged the heart of their parishioners, panged also their own. They were churchmen first, and theologians second, and the former gave birth to the latter.

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  Categories: Ecclesial Theology

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• December 6, 2008

  Leithart on Critical Biblical Scholarship

  Theologian and Pastor Peter Leithart on critical biblical scholarship:

  “One of the most annoying things about critical biblical scholarship is the way that every discussion has to contribute to questions of composition, authorship, historical setting, etc. Harrington gives a very intriguing paper on holiness in Ezra-Nehemiah, but the whole thing is part of a “larger” argument about the common authorship of the two books.

  Without a church to serve with edifying theological interpretation, scholars serve the pseudo-church of biblical scholarship.”

  Categories: Ecclesial Theology

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• December 6, 2008

  Doug Sweeney on the Pastor-theologian

  Doug Sweeney, resident Edwards scholar at TEDS comments about the legacy of Jonathan Edwards.

  “Edwards teaches us that theology can and should be done primarily in the church, for the promotion of Christian wisdom among God’s people. In Edwards’s day, America did not yet have any modern, post-baccalaureate seminaries. Pastors were our nation’s most important theologians, and parishioners understood better how much our lives depend on God’s Word. Today, many pastors …

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• December 5, 2008

  Ecclesial Theology vs Academic Theology

  My article, “Pastor-Scholar to Professor-Scholar: Exploring the Theological Disconnect between the Academy and the Local Church” is now out in the current issue of Westminster Theological Journal (vol 70, 2008). In the article, I argue that the eighteenth-century transition from pastor-scholar to professor-scholar has had significant implications for North American evangelical theology, namely that evangelical theology has become too apologetically focused and has lost sight of distinctly ecclesial concerns. In the paper I argue for a resurrection of the pastor-scholar.

  But “pastors writing academic scholarship” is not my vision of a pastor-scholar. Instead, I’m calling for a return to the sort of theological reflection done by past pastor-scholars such as Augustine, Athanasius, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Edwards, etc.–theologians who wrote from within the social location of the Church, whose reflection was driven by ecclesial concerns, and who were unashamedly Christian and prophetic. As Luther has said, theologians who are willing to “assert”.

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