The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesiological Theology

December 13, 2008 by Gerald Hiestand

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. It would seem to me, then, that pastors will tend to be more theologians than scholars. The very nature of our profession forces us to work toward constructing a cohesive world view. We don’t have the luxury of simply mining the data of the various theological disciplines and then calling it a day.

Categories: Ecclesial Theology