Learning Theology …
“Theology is the study of God and his ways. For all we know, dung beetles may study us and our ways and call it humanology. If so, we would probably be more touched and amused than irritated. One hopes that God feels likewise.”1
Frederick Buechner
I recently attended a lecture and throughout it, an old friend who sat next to me continually dug her elbow into my ribs every time the speaker mentioned “theology.” This was quite irritating. Not just because I was beginning to think I would soon have a bruised rib, but because I am no theologian, no matter what my friend believes.
To be fair, we have been friends for decades and she is still trying to wrap her brain around my role and life as a recently ordained person.
I believe I am no theologian. A few seminary classes in theology do not a theologian make, in my opinion. Yet, I try — perhaps you do too — to learn more of “God and his ways.” I study. I pray. I try to grasp an understanding of complex thoughts and writings about the nature of God. I would like to think I have learned of “God and his ways,” but who really knows?
My seminary theology textbook tells me that this kind of disciplined study is the second level of theology; it is the “methodical investigation and interpretation of the content of Christian faith, the orderly clarification and explanation of what the Christian message affirms.” If that intellectual approach is the “second level of theology,” what is the first?
These scholars claim that the first level of theology is our lived lives. It is how we live out our understanding of “God and His ways” in word, action and manner of life. Our lives are meant to reflect what we believe about God and how we allow that belief to shape our lives.2
Yikes. Maybe other Christians’ lives consistently reflect their understanding of God, but I’m not there … yet.
My colleague, the Rev. Dick Elwood, wrote a lovely Daily Word published on Oct.11 on the life and writings of the late Frederick Buechner. It is Buechner’s quote above that gives me hope. It gives me hope to think that God is pleased by my pitiful efforts to know Him. It gives me hope to think God graciously accepts my limited understanding of His ways. And it gives me hope to think God gives forgiveness when I fail to reflect in my own life what I do know about Him.
1 Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC – Rev. and expanded ed. (New York: HarperOne, 1993), 112.
2 Owen C. Thomas & Ellen K. Wondra, Introduction to Theology, 3rd ed. (New York: Morehouse Publishing, 2002), 1-2.
