Thoughtful Theology

The Fellowship Community continues our blog series on our Core Values. Brenda Norton reminded us of our Jesus Shaped Identity and last week Jim Singleton shared about Biblical Integrity. Today, Jerry Andrews talks to us about Thoughtful Theology and its importance in the Fellowship’s conversations. Today he addresses this value: “We believe in theological education, constant learning, and the life of the mind, and celebrate this as one of the treasures of our Reformed heritage.”

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy…mind.

It’s a command.

Part of the Great Commandment.

We take it seriously.

Presbyterians are self-consciously and unashamedly on the mission of discovering what it means to love the Lord our God with our all our mind. Our obedience has not yet been perfected and our commitment to the project has recently waned, but we have always considered this task near to the center of the Reformed instinct.

It has been an important part of the gift we have long and gladly offered to the whole church. Wesleyans and Baptists and Anglicans and Pentecostals have looked to us for theological and intellectual leadership. They have taken exception to some of our judgments (we are the only ones rejoicing in the doctrine of divine election), and often enough marked out their own theological commitments in opposition to ours, but they have done this following our lead, reading our authors, learning from our teachers, attending our schools, considering our confessions, and then, with these breezes at their back, sailed in parallel and departing directions from our own course.

But some of that gift has recently been squandered.

I was in a public debate on a seminary campus about ten years ago. Two versus two. My ally was brilliant (and, of course, like me, absolutely correct), an ordained Methodist, and a seminary professor. One of our opponents was an ordained Presbyterian and also a seminary professor. After the presentation of our Presbyterian opponent, my partner leaned over to me, covered his microphone, and said “You Presbyterians ought to be embarrassed. I remember when you were the teachers of the Faith.”

So do I. But it is a memory.

I very much want us to reclaim that gift, for the sake of our own particular ministries, for the sake of the generative legacy of the Reformed Faith, and for the sake of the Church – the whole church.

Let me put it another way.

The foundation of the Fellowship (and for that matter, ECO too) was laid on three pillars – get the gospel right; get the gospel out; get the gospel deep within. One might be tempted to argue for the chronological or logical primacy of one before or over the other two, but one cannot successfully argue for one in absence or the expense of the other two.

The renewed work among us of recovering the theological and intellectual project is for the sake of the gospel – the whole gospel; fully believed, proclaimed, and lived – in our generation and the next.

Let me illustrate.

There is a self-identified religious group in America that (considering which public poll you are reading) affirms only by 50-75% the unique authority of the Scripture as the one word of God, that the Almighty has provided for the world one Savior only, that this Savior is fully God and fully human, and that he will return to both save and judge the world. That group…is the evangelicals.

What gospel do they believe, proclaim, and live?

What do you think the next generation will believe, proclaim, and live?

Who will teach them?

I believe this to be an important part of our calling in our generation.

So…we commit to recover the teaching gift, in order to recover the gospel, in order to proclaim it with effectiveness, and live it with faithfulness.

Let me put it one more way.

“The Church has a Faith without which she cannot live faithfully”.

I asked a very close friend of mine lately who, with me, has quoted that line often, who it was that first said it. He replied with surprise, “You did.” I thought I had borrowed it from him or another. Perhaps I did coin it, but I confess freely I long did not practice it. It still feels like a new discovery to me.

My seminary education, and the Bible College education before it, was good and had some stellar moments, many I should say. But the study of Systematic Theology, with some notable exceptions – Carl F. H. Henry, J. I. Packer, Harold O. J. Brown; apparently you needed two initials to teach back then – was led by dispensationalists who outlined theology on the board, an outline we were to copy and repeat on exams. I concluded that if you can outline your theology, you probably don’t have one worth teaching. I was bored and disappointed.

In the providence of God I stumbled onto to the theologians of the first centuries at those same schools. Not an outline among them I noticed. They were characterized by long thought. (Gregory of Nyssa, it is said, thought in pages.) I committed to learn the languages (Greek and Latin) and study the authors at length. Three master’s degrees and a Ph.D. later I had the tools to read with profit the library that now was available to me. (Remember, this is not bragging; this is a confession.)

But half my 40 years of ministry was gone. I had two lives. I was committed to both, loved both, and had some reward in both. But seldom did the twain meet. There was the life of my mind, and my life as a pastor. I was trying with all my might to help a congregation live faithfully, but did not reference the Faith in any effective way.

Further, this was the time that I jumped into the deep end of the pool of PCUSA politics. I was confident in my accusation that our progressive colleagues had lost their grip on the Faith and the Faith had lost its grip on them. I am still confident of this. They, I judged – good people, trying hard to do a good thing – were trying to live faithfully without the Faith of the Church. It is a failed project. It has always failed; it will always fail. I remain bemused why they would attempt it.

But me and my tribe (remember this is a confession), were living divided lives, holding the Faith dear and at the same time shaping our congregations with reference to many things we held to be more persuasive and useful to the enterprise of congregational health and growth.

No longer, I promised myself. And pleading with God for sufficient grace, determined to become what long ago I had been ordained to be – a Teaching Elder.

I discovered this resonated with others. Some could lead me. Others would follow me. Still others might be persuaded to accompany us. And perhaps, just perhaps, those not of my tribe, and those in other communions, would again be blessed by Presbyterians who make no apology and with all appropriate rigor seek to love the Lord our God with all our minds.

You?

God help us.

Jerry Andrews was born and raised in Detroit and has pastored churches in the Pittsburgh and Chicago areas before coming to San Diego in 2009. Jerry graduated from the Detroit Bible College (B.R.E.), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.Div.), Princeton Theological Seminary (Th. M.), the University of Pittsburgh (M.A. in Classics), and the University of Chicago (Ph.D. in the Ancient Mediterranean World). Among his interests are things Biblical, theological, historical, and especially Classical. Jerry loves to teach Patristic Literature and the Reformed Faith. Jerry is unnecessarily proud of injuries from playing hockey and basketball. Jerry and his wife Lois, a former principal and assistant superintendent of schools, live in downtown San Diego and love visits with their three children and four grandchildren.