I have to admit that one of the great things so far about my blog is that it has sparked several great conversations. Last night one of my favorite people asked me an excellent question, one that I have thought about many times over the last three years and one that I think I am beginning to get a little better perspective on now that I am on the downhill side of seminary. Her question related to my post, “Do You Believe in Miracles?” “How on earth does someone end up teaching in a seminary who doesn’t even believe in the most basic Christian belief of miracles?” This is truly a wonderful question, and one that I have struggled with for quite some time, so let me see if I can offer a few thoughts on this.
First of all, in the past three years I have had professors, instructors and speakers who were Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Unitarian Universalist, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, and some who are a mixture of all and everything in between. Some of these people have been professor’s employed by the seminary while others have been guest speakers invited to speak on topics of their specific expertise. In these past three years I have been exposed to many wonderful concepts, ideas and thoughts that I never before even knew existed. Many of these ideas were at the very least mind expanding if not completely mind blowing. These were the ideas that I couldn’t wait to get back home and share in worship or usually more effectively in Bible Study. On the other hand, there were ideas, thoughts and views that I found totally repugnant which I immediately challenged, argued against and fought with every fiber of my being.
Seminaries have a difficult task. How do you prepare someone for the challenges, trials and even persecutions of ministry, especially in the world which we find ourselves living in today? If you have never been exposed to the world and the thoughts and views which are prevalent outside of our own Christian understanding, how can you ever learn to deal with the people who find themselves living in that world on a daily basis?
There are two basic approaches found in seminaries around the world. The first approach is to teach what to think. Believe it or not, sometimes I wish that this was the approach of my seminary. It would be so easy when dealing with the complex, theological, social and moral issues for someone to simply say, this is the best way to think. How many times I have longed for someone to just say, “This is the truth.” Well, as I discussed in an earlier post, aside from Jesus, the truth can sometimes be a relative thing with areas of black, white and all kinds of gray.
The second approach and the one that I feel is the most beneficial, is rather than teach the students WHAT to think, instead to teach the student HOW to think. This is the direction chosen by my seminary, The Methodist Theological School in Ohio.
The more that you study the scriptures, the more you realize how much that you don’t know, and when you begin to factor in the fathers (and mothers) of the church such as Clement of Rome, Saint Ignatious of Antioch, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Augustine, John Chrysostom, Tertullian, Jerome, Gregory, Luther, Calivin, Wesley, and Bonhofer, just to name a few. You learn that these are the people who helped to form and shape our understanding of what it means to be a Christian. An idea as fundamental to Christianity as the Trinity would be a prime example. We think of it as an idea pulled straight from the Bible, and it is, but it was actually Tertullian, more than 1800 years ago, who first introduced in his writings and identified the concept of the Trinity which we take for granted today.
First of all, in the past three years I have had professors, instructors and speakers who were Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Unitarian Universalist, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, and some who are a mixture of all and everything in between. Some of these people have been professor’s employed by the seminary while others have been guest speakers invited to speak on topics of their specific expertise. In these past three years I have been exposed to many wonderful concepts, ideas and thoughts that I never before even knew existed. Many of these ideas were at the very least mind expanding if not completely mind blowing. These were the ideas that I couldn’t wait to get back home and share in worship or usually more effectively in Bible Study. On the other hand, there were ideas, thoughts and views that I found totally repugnant which I immediately challenged, argued against and fought with every fiber of my being.
Seminaries have a difficult task. How do you prepare someone for the challenges, trials and even persecutions of ministry, especially in the world which we find ourselves living in today? If you have never been exposed to the world and the thoughts and views which are prevalent outside of our own Christian understanding, how can you ever learn to deal with the people who find themselves living in that world on a daily basis?
There are two basic approaches found in seminaries around the world. The first approach is to teach what to think. Believe it or not, sometimes I wish that this was the approach of my seminary. It would be so easy when dealing with the complex, theological, social and moral issues for someone to simply say, this is the best way to think. How many times I have longed for someone to just say, “This is the truth.” Well, as I discussed in an earlier post, aside from Jesus, the truth can sometimes be a relative thing with areas of black, white and all kinds of gray.
The second approach and the one that I feel is the most beneficial, is rather than teach the students WHAT to think, instead to teach the student HOW to think. This is the direction chosen by my seminary, The Methodist Theological School in Ohio.
The more that you study the scriptures, the more you realize how much that you don’t know, and when you begin to factor in the fathers (and mothers) of the church such as Clement of Rome, Saint Ignatious of Antioch, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Augustine, John Chrysostom, Tertullian, Jerome, Gregory, Luther, Calivin, Wesley, and Bonhofer, just to name a few. You learn that these are the people who helped to form and shape our understanding of what it means to be a Christian. An idea as fundamental to Christianity as the Trinity would be a prime example. We think of it as an idea pulled straight from the Bible, and it is, but it was actually Tertullian, more than 1800 years ago, who first introduced in his writings and identified the concept of the Trinity which we take for granted today.
Even our basic understanding of the nature of Jesus was hotly debated for hundreds of years. People lost their lives arguing on multiple sides of an issue which today we simply take for granted. In reality, it wasn’t until the first Council of Nicaea in 325 AD (Think Nicene Creed) that a young scholar named Athanasius, argued against the Arian doctrine. The Arian doctrine said that Christ was of a similar substance or even a different substance from God. Athanasius argued that Jesus and God was of the same substance, hence the great emphasis in the Nicene Creed; We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one Being with the Father…
I share this with you to help give you some perspective on the idea that what we believe today is the culmination of thought, understanding, writings and the work of theologians for 2000 years. Even something as simple as the selection of books which we now have as our canon of scriptures called the Holy Bible were greatly debated for many years. You might not be aware that the Catholic Bible for instance has several more books than our Bible, this is certainly worth the time to research and learn about. Luther, the father of our protestant faith, in the 1500’s even argued that the book of James should be eliminated from the canon, he called it the “epistle of straw.”
I share this with you to perhaps help you see that the Holy Spirit has been working in and through the church for thousands of years. There has never been a time in the history of the church when there wasn’t argument, dissension, and disagreement, including as early as the Book of Acts, and this tradition certainly continues today.
So why would they allow someone to teach that doesn’t hold the same beliefs that we do as United Methodists? I think the reason is that they would like for the students to be exposed to as many ideas, thoughts and theologies as possible in order to allow the student to understand that sometimes what you think may not be as important as the way that you arrived at your conclusion.
So continue with me on this journey and keep the questions coming!
Blessings
I share this with you to help give you some perspective on the idea that what we believe today is the culmination of thought, understanding, writings and the work of theologians for 2000 years. Even something as simple as the selection of books which we now have as our canon of scriptures called the Holy Bible were greatly debated for many years. You might not be aware that the Catholic Bible for instance has several more books than our Bible, this is certainly worth the time to research and learn about. Luther, the father of our protestant faith, in the 1500’s even argued that the book of James should be eliminated from the canon, he called it the “epistle of straw.”
I share this with you to perhaps help you see that the Holy Spirit has been working in and through the church for thousands of years. There has never been a time in the history of the church when there wasn’t argument, dissension, and disagreement, including as early as the Book of Acts, and this tradition certainly continues today.
So why would they allow someone to teach that doesn’t hold the same beliefs that we do as United Methodists? I think the reason is that they would like for the students to be exposed to as many ideas, thoughts and theologies as possible in order to allow the student to understand that sometimes what you think may not be as important as the way that you arrived at your conclusion.
So continue with me on this journey and keep the questions coming!
Blessings
1 comment:
Nicely put. I meant to comment when I read it the first time, but then my cousin and I had a similar conversation so I directed her to your blog.
I think I struggle less with the people who have different beliefs, than others do. What I do struggle with is the actual stating of the thoughts and how I think them. Thinking theologically isnt' the problem, it's the writing down and speaking out loud that is the problem. You seem to not have a problem with this. You should help me.
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