The Society for the Advancement of Ecclesiological Theology

April 2, 2010 by Gerald Hiestand

Pastor-Theologians and Academic Theologians: Toward a Healthy Division of Labor, Part 2

In a previous post I raised a question about the necessity of pastor-theologians in light of gifted, ecclesially sensitive academic theologians such as Jenson, Guton, Hart, Webster, Vanhoozer, etc.  Is there anything that a pastor-theologian brings to the table that isn’t already being brought by academic theologians? And if so, what?

Nearly all of my study up to this point has been in historical soteriology (Augustine, the Cappadocians, Athanasius, Anselm, Calvin, Luther, Edwards, etc.)  and New Testament studies devoted to Paul and justification (Wright, Westerholm, Seifrid, Bird, Moo, Dunn, etc.).  I’m a new-comer to contemporary systematic theology, so the analysis provided below must be seen as preliminary. What follows is my “initial sense of things” after reading portions of Jenson, Webster, and Pannenberg, contrasted with the sort of theological reflection written by Calvin, Luther, Augustine, etc. My comments here are not intended so much as a critique, but mere observations. As I will note in a coming post, academic theologians are able to do things that pastor-theologians cannot.

1. Academic Theology lacks a sense of the preacher’s burden. Academic theologians do not typically have to preach to the laity. This reality is evident in the way their work is constructed. The reader senses that academic theology, even explicitly Christian academic theology, is a couple of steps removed from the situation on the ground. Theology, at it’s core, must be pressing toward the pulpit. This does not mean that a theologian’s work should be hung low enough for the shortest goat. But it does mean that whatever I come up with must be — in its most distilled form — preachable. Academic theology lacks this at many points. Don’t misunderstand my point. I’m not saying that a theologian’s project must be preachable without translation — that every interested lay person should be able to pick it up and understand it. Augustin’e De Trinita, or Edwards’ Freedom of the Will, for example, are not easily accessible. But there is a sense in both Augustine and Edwards that they are writing as pastors who have to weekly (if not daily) draw a connection between their most profound thoughts and the lives of  average people. Academic theologians do not — as a matter of vocation — have to do this, and it gives them a certain luxury to split atoms that perhaps need not be split.

2. There is tendency in academic theology to speak of the believing community in the third person. John Webster, in his little book on holiness, is clearly driving toward an explicitly Christian application. Yet the readers notes a certain distance between Webster and the ecclesial community. His customary way of referring to the believing community is in the third person. He speaks of “the christian,” “the believer,” and “the church.” Yet throughout the book he often quotes Calvin, who in contrast speaks of the believing community in the first person — “I” and “we” and “us.” It’s not that Webster never self-identifies with the believing community. But the freedom to do so in academic prose is certainly less than what one finds in Calvin or Luther or Edwards or Augustine. I can’t help but feel that this rubs the ecclesial edge off of Webster’s work.

3. Academic theology is less self-consciously an expression of personal piety. Worship is a personal thing, and each person expresses it uniquely. Far be it from me to make a statement about the personal piety of academic theologians. Yet I think it a safe observation to note that contemporary scholarship (whether theology or biblical studies), is less self-consciously pietistic than what is found in theological treatises of old. One thinks here of Anselm’s Proslogion. In the opening paragraphs Anselm writes,

Lord, you are my God and my Lord, and never have I seen you. You have created me and re-created me and You have given me all the good things I possess, and still I do not know You. In fine, I was made in order to see You, and I have not yet accomplished what I was made for….I set out hungry to look for You; I beseech You, Lord, do not let me depart from you fasting.

The entire treatise is, in fact, a prayer. My point here is not that all theological treatise should be written as extended prayers. But there is certainly something to be said for a genre of writing that makes explicit the author’s personal hunger and love for God.

I like Webster and Jenson, and am finding their work helpful in many respects. And, as mentioned above, I think they are doing some important things that most pastor-theologians –given our eccleisal vocation –  find difficult to pull off. More on that in the next post.

Categories: Academic Theology | John Webster | Pastor-theologian | Robert Jenson