\nIn the past twenty years, the church has put its pastors in a double bind.\nThe church says it’s committed to local, Spirit-empowered, context-sensitive\nministry—while becoming bedazzled by the great performances of Christian\nstars. The problem is rural as much as urban. Anyone who can tune in to a\nChristian radio station is now a homiletics professor.<\/p>\n\n
\nI’m not all that bad a preacher, but I wonder sometimes why I shouldn’t just\nshow videos of preaching geniuses on Sunday morning. People say they believe\nin the local church and in the gifts of the Spirit, but sometimes I feel\nthat if my gifts are not prodigious, they can’t be productive.<\/p>\n\n
\nThe fault is not with great preachers or Christian radio or television. We,\nthe church, are at fault.<\/p>\n\n
\nIn synch with our culture, we crave talent and genius, and disdain hard work\nand character. We are fascinated by the nature<\/em> of Christian genius\nand are bored by the grace<\/em> of the Christian gospel. Preaching conferences\non delivery are full; conferences on the message are empty.<\/p>\n\n \nTo put it bluntly, the gospel is no longer enough. The message must be preached\nbrilliantly, or have a garage sale; it’s time to move on.<\/p>\n\n Whenever I feel snake-bitten by our Christian culture’s obsession with genetics, the ten pages in Soren Kierkegaard’s “Of the Difference between a Genius and an Apostle” (an essay appended to The Present Age<\/em>) help me.<\/p>\n\n \nI purchased The Present Age<\/em> in May 1979, the month I graduated from\nGordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, for a buck at Barnes & Noble Basement\non my last trip to Boston. I read this one-dollar gold mine during my first\nyear in ministry and many times since. It makes me want to preach the gospel\nwith all my might.<\/p>\n\n \nSoren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a colossal genius who didn’t do many\nthings well. He wasn’t a great theologian, he’s tough as nails to read, and\nthough he is famous as a philosopher, it is hard to say that he even had\na philosophy. He underwent a genuine conversion experience, and though his\nlife was moral, it was hardly exemplary. His genius was so focused it was\nas if his brain could do only one thing.<\/p>\n\n \nS. K.’s genius was discernment. His intellect cut to the core of everything,\nlike a butcher knife cracking open an apple. When we try to develop a\nKierkegaardian theology or philosophy we are sorely disappointed. But when\nwe submit our world to his intellectual blades, everything is suddenly cut\nopen for clear inspection.<\/p>\n\n \nKierkegaard caught Protestantism’s adulation of genius as it displayed itself\nin the insipid state-church Lutheranism of Denmark. In his day scholars and\npreachers deliberated on the apostle Paul’s supposed genius. Kierkegaard\ntells us, “[O]ne not infrequently hears priests . . . prostituting Christianity.\nThey talk in exalted terms of St. Paul’s brilliance and profundity, of his\nbeautiful similes and so on—that is mere aestheticism. If St. Paul is to\nbe regarded as a genius, then things look pretty bleak for him.<\/p>\n\n \n“As a genius St. Paul cannot be compared with either Plato or Shakespeare,\nas a coiner of beautiful similes he comes pretty low down in the scale\n. . .”<\/p>\n\n \nS. K. highlights three basic differences between a genius and an apostle.\nI’ll paraphrase them:<\/p>\n\n \n1. Genius brings forth something new, but it is eventually assimilated\nand advanced upon by humanity.<\/em><\/strong> The apostle Paul has something new\nto bring as well, but it can never be assimilated and advanced upon by humanity.\nThe message of the apostle remains new for eternity.<\/p>\n\n \n“A man may have reached the age of discretion long ago, when suddenly he\nis called to be an apostle. As a result of this call he does not become more\nintelligent, does not receive more imagination, a greater acuteness of mind\nand so on; on the contrary, he remains himself and by that paradoxical fact\nis sent on a particular mission by God.”<\/p>\n\n \n2. Genius is what it is according to its content and artistry; an apostle\nis what he is through having divine authority.<\/em><\/strong> “Divine authority\nis, qualitatively, the decisive factor. It is not by evaluating the content\nof the doctrine aesthetically or intellectually. . . . I do not have to listen\nto St. Paul because he is clever, or even brilliantly clever; I am to bow\nbefore St. Paul because he has divine authority.”<\/p>\n\n \n3. The goal of genius is to produce the work of genius; the apostle’s\ngoal is completely outside of himself.<\/em><\/strong> “Genius lives in itself; and\nhumorously, might live withdrawn and self-satisfied, without for that reason\ntaking its gifts in vain, so long as it develops itself earnestly and\nindustriously, following its own genius, regardless of whether others profit\nby it or not.<\/p>\n\n \n“The doctrine communicated to him [an apostle] is not a task which he is\ngiven to ponder over, it is not given him for his own sake, he is, on the\ncontrary, on a mission and has to proclaim the doctrine and use\nauthority. . . . just as a minister who is sent to a foreign court is not\nresponsible for the content of the message, but has only to convey it correctly:\nso too an apostle has really only to be faithful in his service, and to carry\nout his task. Therein lies the essence of an apostle’s life of\nself-sacrifice. . . . Intellectually speaking he is like the tireless housewife\nwho herself hardly has time to eat, so busy is she preparing food for others.”<\/p>\n\n \nThat God has given us George Whitefields and Charles Spurgeons and ________\n(fill in the blank) is his generous gift to us; that we focus on their genius\ninstead of on their message is to return idolatry to God instead of gratitude.<\/p>\n\n \nI know that I must preach the gospel as clearly and compellingly as my gifts\nallow, but I dare not see myself on the stage of some Christian Gong Show.\nThe essence of all is in the authoritative, apostolic message I have been\nentrusted with, a message I accept, not because of the genius of St. Paul,\nbut because God spoke through him. I acknowledge his authority as an apostle,\nand I preach with that authority myself.<\/p>\n\n Dave Hansen is pastor of Belgrade Community Church in Belgrade, Montana.\nIn this column, he explores how church leaders from the past can mentor us\ntoday.<\/p>\n\n \n 1996 by Christianity Today\/LEADERSHIP journal<\/p>\nButcher-knife intellect<\/h2>
Gospel genius<\/h2>