There is in our generation in evangelicalism an estrangement, even a cleavage, between Church and theology. Some would express it as an antithesis between doctrine and life; theology is then understood to be a purely theoretical business while the task of the Christian is to be active in shaping practical life. Elsewhere the seductive power of philosophy has caused some to fall prey to what has been aptly called “fear of thinking.”
Another common sign of what we are speaking of is the polarization of evangelism and teaching. Among evangelicals the first loyalty then goes to evangelism; teaching is easily held to be a matter of secondary importance for which one does not care greatly or has little energy left.
This cleavage in evangelicalism between Church and theology seems to be particularly wide at present. It has been deepened by the attitude toward the Word of God held by influential schools of modern theology. This attitude issues not just in form criticism but in unbridled criticism of the contents of the biblical message. Theology has posed as master of the Gospel.
Add the fact that certain church leaders have not only let this go unchallenged but have asked their churches to acquiesce to the development, and everything is set for conflict, even a divorce. A theology dominating will produce a church suspicious, then seditious or separating.
The Church cannot remain indifferent to this separation between itself and theology. For this division causes inestimable damage to the Church in at least three ways.
First, a lack of doctrine leaves the preaching of the Church (which naturally will go on) without re-examination and therefore without possible correction. Since the lack of theology also entails a lack of tradition and relation to the Fathers of the Church, so the corrective given with the history of Christendom is lost, too. The Church must surrender to the reign of subjectivism. It is likely to fall victim to strong individual personalities, to heresy and division.
Second, without vivid theology the Church has no reply to the questions put to it from the outside, questions for which—according to First Peter 3:15—it ought to have answers ready at all times. Unfit to meet the ideological and philosophical challenges of its surroundings, the Church withdraws into a ghetto existence and so loses touch with reality, with the normal life of mankind, and therefore with the task of mission, which is the lifeblood of the Church.
Third, the Church pays for its lack of theology with the loss of a substantial part of its own young generation. Those questions that are addressed to the Church from the outside the young will put to the church leaders also from the inside. When these leaders, because they lack theological resources, simply refuse to enter the dialogue, to the mind of the questing they deny the absoluteness of Christianity and suggest that the Christian faith after all has no answer for the twentieth century. In short, a church without vitality of doctrine will be guilty of losing its own children.
These things actually do happen, although they are not at all unavoidable. The fathers of evangelicalism were powerful theologians who influenced the whole of Protestant Christendom and provided it with a strong doctrinal base. The separation of Church and theology or of evangelism and doctrine is not justified biblically, either. Christ exercised both throughout his earthly ministry, both primary proclamation and doctrine (see Matthew 13). Paul traveled the route of his first missionary journey for a second time in order, as we read, to “strengthen the brethren.”
That many evangelicals are avoiding theology is bound to have disastrous consequences. They react to the wrong theology by abstaining from all theology. They resemble a person who, having once been served rotten food, decides to abstain from eating in the future altogether. His decay is only a matter of time.
The cleavage between theology and Church is also a problem of theology.
In Matthew 24 Jesus describes two types of servants of the Lord. The first one is forgetful of his Master, eats and drinks with strangers, and beats his own people. The other one faithfully follows his Lord’s commission to feed his fellow servants at the proper time. These two figures to my mind also represent the alternatives facing the theologian. He can live one way or the other. His true calling, though, is expressed in Christ’s words addressed to Peter: “Once you have been converted, strengthen your brethren!” It is expressed also in those parallel words spoken after his resurrection when he thrice asked Peter “Do you love me?” and finally commissioned him to “feed my sheep, feed my lambs.”
Much of today’s theology seems still to be before its conversion; therefore it fails to “feed the sheep” and strengthen the brethren. The problem is that it perhaps cannot as yet answer Christ’s question, “Do you love me?” A conversion of theology to the love of Christ is the first thing needed. Conversion to God would also further conversion to brethren, and love of Christ would bring about caring for his household.
It is the task of theology not to get drunk with foreign ideas and beat up God’s children but to feed and strengthen them. Theology’s task is part of shepherding the Church.
Of course there still exists that third type of a theologian, lovable and learned, who quietly serves his research interests and, with great satisfaction and the inner glow of a slightly heightened blood pressure, follows the path of his studies.
He would not think of beating his fellow Christians. They simply don’t exist in his world view, and therefore he would neither beat them nor feed them.
Theology as art for art’s sake—that attitude, too, fails to fulfill the task set to theology.
Today theology’s problem is a widespread lack of responsibility toward the Church, a failure to recognize its obligation. It likes to reign, and is little prepared to serve. It is not unlike the maid who deserts her household, runs away from the kitchen to the fair, and returns with paper flowers and a little cotton candy thinking they will cheer and feed the family.
From the Christian point of view, theology must never be satisfied with its own pursuit of the knowledge of God, but must move on to teaching the doctrine of God, passing on to others what it has been given in listening to the Word and Spirit.
“It is more blessed to give than to receive”—this is also true for theology. Service, the special province of Christian ethics, is for the theologian, too.
KLAUS BOCKMÜHL
