5. Choosing the Question

The common practice of colleges is to provide a list of questions – perhaps six or so – from which the students may choose. Doubtless they do this to stop the markers dying of boredom and to make sure that library resources are evenly spread amongst students. Good reasons, perhaps: but it adds a layer of decision-making to the whole process which may cause you some stress – especially if you are one of those people who can never decide what colour socks to wear in the morning.

And the truth of the matter is that this is one of those decisions you are going to make that you have to make without fully knowing what it will look like at the end of the process. It’s a bit like getting married: you have to sort of guess on the basis of the piecemeal information you have what is going to work out best. And there’s years to regret the decision if it is made poorly. (Of course, the analogy breaks down in several obvious ways. There’s no party when you choose your essay topic. Your friends won’t give you presents. And… OK, maybe it was a rubbish analogy to begin with.)

But still: you are going to spend (well I hope!) a lot of hours wedded to this question – and not to some other possibly very interesting and worthwhile questions - so the decision is worth taking carefully.

Cast your eye over the list of essay questions. What immediately interests you? Usually, you will get a quick sense of what topic area a question is addressing, and you may have a sense already of a topic area that interests you. Perhaps a particular topic has been smoldering away in your mind for a while. Or perhaps you can immediately see how an issue will have benefits for your ministry. It might be that several of the questions have this effect. Asterisk them.

But it is worth looking a little more closely. It could be that the topic is of interest to you, but that the question is angled in a particular way so as to take it out of your frame of interest. I often speak with students who say, a couple of weeks in to the assignment, ‘I thought the essay was a question that was going to help me resolve x, but actually it has drawn me to y.’ Or, worse: I have marked essays that have been addressed to a vague topic area, say ‘the doctrine of election’, but not to the specific question about the doctrine of election, say ‘in what sense is Christ ‘the mirror of our election’ (John Calvin). We’ll talk about analyzing the question later; but it is worth noting that a topic and a question are somewhat different beasts and need to be held in separate cages in the zoo of your mind. Or they’ll fight, honest.

Now, a couple of more things are worth taking into account here. Many students will ask themselves quite straightforwardly ‘which essay is the easiest’? This is entirely understandable, especially if you have a low opinion of yourself as a student, or if you are not used to essay writing. But beware: the question that seems easiest may not be at all. Most students are attracted to a more general question – the kind of question that is asked in familiar terms and which appears to allow you scope to repeat information you already know or at least have a hunch you might know where to find. Here’s an example of such a question:
Discuss the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

This seems like a real gimme putt, to use a golfing term; or an open goal in football terms. Once when I was in primary school, in my only game as a striker for the senior soccer team, the ball popped over the defenders’ heads, leaving me in the clear bearing down on an open goal with the keeper out of his area. I vividly remember stabbing at the ball with my toe and watching it veer off wildly in the direction of the corner flag.

This could happen with this apparently easy essay. Why? Because it is vague. It looks like all you have to do is really simple. But it is actually asking you to do all the work in framing a response. ‘Discuss’ is a word that should alarm you – because it could mean almost anything. There is no frame of reference given in the question. It is actually a badly asked question in educational terms – but your teachers are fallible and you see this sort often enough, alas. The vagueness of the question will lead to the vagueness of your answer unless you are very careful.

So: don’t just try to choose the easiest. Usually that is impossible to tell, and the easiest-looking one usually isn’t. And it is a wasted opportunity to stretch yourself, too.

My advice would also be not to choose a topic because it is an opportunity to address a current church controversy – women’s ministry, or charismatic gifts, for example. It is good to think about these questions, of course! But inevitably, as a marker I find that these essays are skewed by feelings and polemics and tend to fall short of the mark as pieces of academic theological thinking. What’s more, controversies tend to pass in time. Will it still be an issue of such fundamental importance in ten years time? In the end, giving your time and your mind to an issue more at the heart of the theological enterprise is likely to equip you better to respond to controversy in any case.

It is worth getting a sense for what your class mates might doing. I am tempted to feed your cynicism here and say this is because it is easier to stand out in a smaller crowd – so choose the question that no-one else appears to be doing because you’ll get a better mark. But there two good reasons to consider what others are doing. First, it may be that library resources are limited and that you’ll do everyone a favour by attempting the question that is standing by looking desperate and dateless. Second, it’s because there could be a good chance for some collaborative learning and there are people who are doing this question who’d you like to work with. I’ll say some more about working with other students a bit later – it’s a practice which has obvious advantages but some hidden disadvantages.

But above all: go with something that interests you. It could be that you are intrigued and can’t imagine yet what an answer might be. It could be that you are going have an opportunity to read the work of a great theologian whose work you haven’t read before. It could be that you already have a sense of what the answer might be and you’re itching to put it down on paper. If none of the questions interests you, I don’t know what to suggest – but why are studying theology?!

POSTSCRIPT
In some circumstances you may be invited to make up your own question. It might be a final year project, or a later-year course in which a general topic area is given. For some students this is the worst thing in the world – it brings out all their vices of indecision. They can never settle on a topic or on a question within that topic. If this is you: I don’t know quite what to suggest except for make a decision and stick with it!!! I can’t help you more than that really!

But the trick here is to narrow it down. You aren’t writing a PhD. Most students are far too ambitious in what they propose. If you have a big question you are intent on answering, see yourself as just taking a slice off the top of it rather than doing the whole thing. Focus is what you want – you need to make space for yourself to mount a plausible argument and to marshal the necessary evidence. So for example: Evaluate the traditional doctrine of original sin would make a great book. It is possible to write something pretty good in a few thousand words on this. But why not make it: Evaluate Augustine’s doctrine of original sin? This gets you to focus on a particular set of texts rather than a potentially enormous array of materials.

4. The Responsibility of Theology

You may be impatient to get on with it now. After all, there's a deadline looming, and lots to do.

But I want to slow it down a little and ask you to consider something vital about the whole nature of this piece of attempted thinking in which you are about to engage. Theology is a unique science because it has as its object the holy God himself. That means that, even though the theology essay is an academic exercise, it is not by any means a merely academic exercise.

It's God we are dealing with here. Take off your shoes, we might say. You are walking on holy ground.

The object of this study dwells in unapproachable light. 'Our God is a consuming fire', and not a creature whose biorhythms and mating habits we might study. And our God has spoken, in the past by the prophets, and finally and decisively in the person of his Son, who is the exact imprint of his being.

How could we hope to say anything that isn't a blasphemy? How could we hope to say anything that isn't, at least potentially, the making of an idol?

And yet, the guts of the matter is that a word has been spoken; and that God has invited human beings to repeat and explain and explore this word, to 'take every thought captive' in his service.

What this means for theology - and for your theology essay - is that it must be humble before its object and responsible to it. If any verse is to be the theologian's motto it is 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'. If you do not fear the Lord, that what, may I ask, are you doing studying theology? There are theology students who have embarked on the study of theology as a matter of mere interest, perhaps because they are struck by the breadth of the intellectual challenge before them. They may be fascinated by theology, even devoted to it. But if they are not devoted to God, then theology has itself become a false god. An interest in theology for its own sake is a perversion of the true end of theology - which is not just to know about God, but to know him and make him known.

And that means being responsible - in the sense of answerable - to it. The Lord whom we are called to fear is the judge of all. There is no trifling with this God! And he has spoken. Whatever thoughts we may have are after the fact of this speech. The criteria for successful theology is quite simply 'is it faithful to God's own revelation of himself?' For you that means that you ought to have no truck with playing intellectual games in your essay. You have no business simply showing off your intellectual brilliance. One of the worst temptations of the theological student is the temptation innovate for its own sake - to revel in the high of sublime ideas for their own sake. I confess that this is sometimes my own temptation: ideas are delightful, the life of the mind scintillating and the consequences truly dreadful.

Can a bad person do good theology? I was once in a master's seminar with Professor Oliver O'Donovan where he posed this question. Of course, the answer is "I really hope so" because there are no other kinds of human person. But O'Donovan had in mind as 'bad' the person who really had no fear of God at all, and who showed in his or her life only disregard and even contempt for God. He confessed that he had encountered such people - and, I regret to say, so have I. They may do brilliant intellectual work. But it is not good theology.

Those who write theology are not only limited creatures, but are sinful, and they stand before a holy God. And that is why they must start their work with prayer. They really have no other option. They must ask for God's help - they must start with this humble act, and submit their intellects to his service.

Here's what they might pray:

Father of all wisdom, I praise you that in your Son Jesus Christ you have made yourself known to men and women: enlighten and guide me by your Holy Spirit as I begin this work; help me in my weakness to think truly about you and in my pride to be humble before you; keep me from falsehood, and make me your servant in the building of your church; in the name of your Son by whose death and resurrection we have new life to the praise of your glorious grace: Amen.

And that prayer includes a final thought: that theology that begins with prayer will be done in the service of God and his people. There ought to be nothing self-indulgent about theological study. I trust you have begun your course of study in theology because you want to serve God's people, in whatever way. Your study will no doubt be of enormous spiritual benefit to you. But it will, I pray, be of enormous benefit to the church, too.

Does that make a difference to your approach to your theology essay? I most certainly hope it does. Not because anyone other than the marker will ever read it necessarily! But because this essay is an opportunity to know God better so that you might make him known more truly. It doesn't mean you will choose the most 'relevant' topic, or the most contentious, or the most obviously pastoral. It doesn't mean you will 'dumb down' your answer. The opposite in fact: you should be motivated to do as thorough a job as possible, because you are seeking to serve God and his people - humble before him, responsible to his revelation of himself, and seeking the benefit of others in what you do.


POSTSCRIPT

Because of its object - God - theology makes particular demands on its students. But in making these demands, it actually can teach other fields of study about how they should go about their work. There is an ethics, or a spirituality of theological study. And so there ought to be with any subject. The kind of faithfulness to its object that theology requires ought to present in every field. Just as theology treats its object as holy and seeks to known it on its own terms - God as he reveals himself - so any discipline ought to revere its object and seek to serve it. The worst kind of academic work is found when the things that are studied become merely the tools in some kind of intellectual game. This certainly happened somewhat in the field of literary studies, in which I received my early training. The great literary works disappeared from university courses and were replaced by a plethora of options for study including an emphasis on literary theory.

I am not against literary theory. But to study it as a study in and of itself seems to perpetuate a circle of self-indulgence - and to prove that much of it is not designed to say anything about literary texts, but rather to focus our attention elsewhere. You can't known something properly without in some way humbling yourself before it. This is as true for physics or history as it is for theology.

3. What is a Theology Essay?

Try. Have a go.

That's what an essay actually is - an attempt. The word 'essay' comes from the French word 'essayer', which means 'to try'. We owe the term to the Frenchman Michel de Montaigne who, in 1580, published a book of 'essais'. Englishman Francis Bacon turned his hand to a few 'essais' a couple of decades afterwards, thereby bringing the idea of the essay accross the English channel.

But let's be under no illusions: the kind of thing Montaigne and Bacon wrote is not what you are being asked to write. More's the pity, too: those kinds of essays were exploratory in nature and elegant in style. It wasn't necessarily meant to persuade you of anything. Montaigne and Bacon noodled around, but it was a pleasure to watch them as they noodled. I am sorry, but if you submit a Bacon style essay you almost certainly will not do very well, though you may have more fun.

The form of the undergraduate essay in the humanities in most Western educational institutions has emerged because, in the Western way of thinking about learning, we value independence of thought and the ability to argue a case. Being asked to write an essay in the West is an invitation to state a thesis and defend a position - and to offer that as your own.

It's a notion that comes from a legal way of seeing the world, in which you get at the truth in a rather combatative way - you need to take sides. That's how Western law courts work - you have lawyers who try to persuade a jury (or a judge) to believe one construal of the evidence.

Now, it is worth saying that there are of course other ways of getting at the truth - and these other ways may even be superior to the legal model. Granted. But the persuasive essay does have many benefits to it for the student. It forces you to organise your thoughts, for one. It also requires you to read deeply in one subject area. I clearly remember each of my undergraduate theology essays as landmarks in my education. Thinking is hard work, and a theology essay helps you to think.

I emphasise that it is a Western way of thinking for a reason. If you are from a non-Western background, it may be that you have become accustomed to an educational model whose emphasis is on internalising knowledge delivered by authorised instructors. However strange it may seem, the point of exercise is to express your own informed opinion, and not someone else's. It may also be a difficult point to grasp if your previous tertiary training has been in science or engineering - disciplines in which originality of thought only gets you into trouble! But the tradition of the 'humanities' prizes the freshness of the perspective as a sign that the discipline is being internalised.

Things are not quite as straightfoward as this in theology, however. Of course, in theological thinking there is a body of recognised and authoritative truths to which a writer is accountable. Theology is not the same as, say, literary criticism, in which there are no wrong answers but only bad arguments. Nevertheless, theology is one of the 'humanities' (actually, it is 'divinity', but that's another matter). It is composed of sub-disciplines like history, languages, and the interpretation of texts - all of them literary disciplines. So it makes sense to assess theology in the same way that those subjects are usually assessed.

What of originality? Well, yes, in the practise Christian theology originality may be a vice rather than a virtue. Novelty as a principle does not bring the truth to light. I think theological essayists should reckon with this: faithfulness to the sources in front of you is as important as freshness. But it is still the case that there are many ways to express and articulate and respond to the great truths expressed in Christian orthodoxy. There may also be fresh ways to show the interconnection of these truths. So I am not willing to let go of originality as a principle so long as it is counterbalanced by a humility that says 'I must be true to the object of my study here'.

What makes a theology essay different is its purpose. The object of the theology essay is to say true things about God. Even when you are asked about something that is not God - creation, for example - the theology essay has to tell us something about God, or it is not a theology essay.

To do that it has to focus, naturally, on where God is made known to us. For evangelical theology students, that place is Holy Scripture. So, there will be a lot of Bible in a theology essay (though more about the role of Scripture in your essay later). Even so, it is important to distinguish the theology essay as a type from, say, the New Testament essay, whose goal is to tell us what the New Testament teaches. The two goals overlap of course. But whereas the New Testament essay tells us what a text says, the theology essay attempts to tell us what, when all is said and done, we may say about God himself.

To do that, the theological essayist needs to focus on concepts. Ideas. Thoughts. They are funny things, ideas: they aren't objects in the world like chairs and tables and laboratory rats. And they aren't events that can be accessed through witnesses. (Now theology in fact involves objects and events as it turns out - but it is primarily the thinking about them as ideas and in terms of the ideas that spring from them that involves you, the would-be essayist. But more of that later).

But it is more than just 'ideas' that are your concern. You are being asked to order ideas, in the form of an argument. How are the ideas connected? How do they relate? What do they amount to in the end? What are the implications of this connection of concepts?

That's why it is important for the student to realise that the theological essay does not merely summarise the teaching of scripture on a given subject. It is not a Bible dictionary article. It does that summative task, sure: but it does more. That's what makes it a challenge. One of the things that the theological essayist has to reckon with is that her chief source, Scripture, is composed of a variety of different types of literature only some of which look at all like the piece of writing she is attempting to compose herself. And Scripture doesn't explicitly answer all the theological questions that might be asked of her. The theology essay will hopefully distill, synthesize and extrapollate the teaching of Scripture.

It will distill it in that it will articulate what the whole of Scripture teaches with as much clarity as possible. It will synthesize in that it will look at the diversity of Scripture and try to find its points of coherence. It will extrapollate in that it will make explict what is merely implicit in the Bible, or make connections where the connections have not been articulated.

So, to summarize: remember a theology essay is an invitation to express an argument of your own. It's about God. And it will contain ideas.

2. What is theology in any case?

I remember my Chemistry teacher in my second year of high school very well. I remember him because he used to say things in a thick Egyptian accent like 'you late, I chop your head'.

He also said, with the all intensity of a prophet, 'chemistry - is - life'.

I was no scientist. But it was one of those exciting moments when the teacher of a certain discipline makes an impossibly grand claim for his subject to the extent that actually all the other piffling subjects on your timetable seem like excuses to fill in the days until the real business comes around. History, English, Music, Art - these were all reducible in the end to Chemistry.

Teachers of theology can often seem guilty of making this kind of exorbitant claim for their discipline over and against the other things that clutter up the timetables of the typical seminary course. But they have a great deal of difficulty explaining to students what theology actually is.

To be fair, almost any subject you can name labours under the difficulty of defining itself. If you ever want to see a nerd fight, ask a bunch of historians or physicists what 'history' or 'physics' is. You'll have a room full of torn corduroy in no time.

But this definitional problem doesn't help you much if you are supposed to be attempting to write a piece called a 'theology essay'. And it might be matched by your own scepticism about the value of theology as a subject. Many evangelical undergraduates seem unconvinced about even the need for a thing called 'theology' in the first place. If you have a high view of the Scriptures as the Word of God, then isn't the study of the Bible the last station on the line?

We are rightly suspicious of grand theological systems that force the square pegs of Scripture into the round holes of reason. We are rightly appalled by the way in which theology can be a device for avoiding the plain meaning of the text. But these are abuses of theology – and do not describe its proper practice.

So what is it? Here’s my working definition:

‘Theology’ is the name we give to that activity of the mind which seeks to give a coherent and intelligible articulation of the truth about God and his relation to the world, drawn from the scriptures and addressed to our contemporaries.

Notice, first, that it is a species of reason, subject to the Word of God (‘coherent and intelligible…drawn from the scriptures’). That is, theology attempts to be coherent and intelligible - to make sense. It is a work of the mind, understanding that the mind is God-given and that every thought ought to be taken captive. But it is a special form of reason, which acknowledges the moral limitations of the human mind corrupted as it is by sin. As such, it follows the peculiar, distinctive and sometimes surprising shape of the Word of God; and so it is properly understood as “exegetical reason”, as Professor John Webster of Aberdeen puts it.

Secondly, Christian theology is a form of speech (‘…articulation of the truth’). It is a verbal form, reliant on words, the stuff of communication. Its instruments are words. While theology itself teaches us to be wary of the slipperiness of words, it also gives us heart: words are indeed capable of becoming the vehicle of God’s self-communication, and the means by which we can communicate about God.

Thirdly, Christian theology has a particular subject matter: it is about God and his deeds (‘the truth about God and his relation to the world’). That is, it is evangelical. The content of theology is ‘merely’ a reiteration - an expanded reiteration - of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Theological thinking may provide us with a point of view on any number of subjects, but it will not be true to itself if it does not relate it to the promises of God declared to mankind and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

If it is evangelical, then, fourthly, it is also evangelistic (‘about God and his relation to the world… addressed to our contemporaries’). That is to say, the purpose of Christian theology is to speak these words in the hearing of the world, inviting people near and far to submit to the Lordship of Christ Jesus. Christian theology that is true to its task does not fold in on itself and relate itself endlessly to irresolvable speculations. Neither is it merely antiquarian: theology relates itself to today, to here and to now. Truly Christian theology serves as a call to repent and believe to which a contemporary person may respond. This has to be the case, because as Christian theology – words about the God of Christian scripture – it must share his concern for the lost and have in view his eternal purposes.

Theology – is – life.

1: How not to lose heart before you start

I recently competed in a marathon. Doesn't every middle aged man who can't afford a Porsche do this? In the months leading up to the event, it was certainly easy to say 'hey, I'm running a marathon' and bask in the glory of the unattempted and unachieved with that little inner smug feeling.

It was quite another to stare down the hard tarmac on a warm Sydney morning and imagine pounding it for some four hours (more like five as it turned out). Some 20 kms in and everything in me was saying 'you can't do this, and you should stop now'.

A theology essay can feel an awful lot like that. If you don't feel just a little overwhelmed, then I don't think you have really grasped the size of the mountain you are being asked to climb. As I said in my previous post, a theology essay is a complex, multi-disciplinary entity involving a conversation with ancient and modern texts (oh, and all the stuff in the millennia in between). Knowledge of four or five languages would help. And the history, literature and philosophy of a number of cultures. Hardest of all, it is an exercise in thought. It asks you to think about concepts, and to nuance them.

Making the same point, the American theologian David Bentley Hart writes:

...theology requires a far great scholarly range than does any other humane science. The properly trained Christian theologian, perfectly in command of his materials, should be a proficient linguist, with a mastery of several ancient and modern tongues, should have a complete formation in the subtleties of the whole Christian dogmatic tradition, should possess a considerable knowledge of the texts and arguments produced in every period of the Church, should be a good historian, should be thoroughly trained in philosophy, ancient, medieval and modern, should have a fairly broad grasp of liturgical practice in every culture and age of the Christian world, should (ideally) possess considerable knowedge of literature, music and the plastic arts, should have an intelligent interest in the effects of theological discourse in areas such as law or economics, and so on and so forth. This is not to say that one cannot practice theology without these attainments; but such an education remains the scholarly ideal of the guild...

More of the nature of the theological task in a later post - but if even a genius like Hart finds it overwhelming (and I suspect he has most of the accomplishments that he lists) then what hope have we mere hackers? What is your little effort possibly going to contribute to the discussion of centuries? How can your attempt to wrestle with the question do it justice in any way at all given the gargantuan nature of the enterprise? These theological debates have been aged in centuries like a fine whiskey is aged in oak - and we are still drinking orange cordial.

But there's another thing. And it is that the task of serving Jesus and his people - which is why you signed up for theological study in the first place - seems a long way from this particular process. You aren't going to be writing essays for people who need to be show the love of Christ and to hear the good news. The slow train of the theology essay seems to take the long way around to the destination. How is it going to help me in my ministry?

I am here to tell you that a) it is going to help you enormously; b) even you can do it; and c) it may even be fun (bear with me here.).

a) the theology essay is your chance to spend serious time with your attention focused on an issue, question or problem in the knowledge of God that really matters. There is a kind of theological reasoning which is obsessed with abstract and irrelevant questions - the proverbial 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin' question. The theologians of the Reformation period, however, insisted that theology properly done is an intensely practical discipline - not because it is really only concerned with what we should do, but because the knowledge of God is always relevant to the lives of men and women. There is, in fact, no more vital study than to know God and his benefits. Your essay is going to shape you as a servant of God's people and is going to benefit you in your own spiritual life - because to know God more deeply is the goal. The Elizabethan scholar William Perkins wrote:

Theology is the science of living blessedly for ever. Blessed life ariseth from the knowledge of God and therefore it ariseth likewise from the knowledge of ourselves, because we know God by looking into ourselves.

b) ...and you can do it. Now, I haven't met you, so I don't really know at one level whether you can do it or not. But one important conviction ought to sustain you here - and that is that the knowledge of God itself is not the domain only of the clever. Let Jesus's prayer in Matt 11:25 be your comfort: "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children." We are all gifted differently, and have had different educational and cultural backgrounds that make this process easy for some and less so for others. But whatever level you are at, there is a profound equality amongst Christians in terms of the knowledge of God - because this knowledge is a revealed and not a discovered knowledge. It is to that revelation of God in his Son Jesus Christ that we answer in our writing of theological essays.

That's not to say that an answer full of pious observations is what is looked for in a theology essay. You aren't writing a sermon, or a devotional reflection. That's a mistake of genre that some students make. But you aren't coming at this cold - you not only know, but you are known by the object of your study!

c) ...and yes, it can be fun. It's overwhelming, but - what a challenge! You are being asked to think alongside some of the most profound thinkers of all history - Augustine, Aquinas, Luther. You are being invited to scale the heights and see the panoranic view at the summit - but not to do it unassisted but alongside expert guides. You being challenged to grow as a knower of the knowledge of the God. You are being invited to hear unfamilar voices express familiar truths. Because theological thinking emerges from the Christian gospel, which addresses all human beings everywhere and everywhen, then the discipline of theology invites you to learn from what the Holy Spirit has taught Christian believers in places that you and I can't even locate on a map.

So: what are you waiting for?

How to Write a Theology Essay

So, you've signed up for your theological studies; you've weathered the storm of those early weeks of langauge study (and yes, it is still all Greek to me); you've coped with your early forays into biblical exegesis; and you've been given a sketch of the history of the early church. There's been some spiritual highs and some frustrating lows. You can see perhaps just the beginnings of the benefits of the process of theological education creeping into your ministry - such precious minutes of it as you can grab, anyway.

But sensing a deadline looming, you go to the relevant webpage on your seminary website (past all those smiling photos of students from minorities) and discover that a strange beast is lying in wait for you: the theology essay. It might look something like this:

With regard to the doctrine of election, on what basis may a Christian person have personal assurance of salvation?

or this:

What would be lost by denying that the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead was bodily?

You have been given 3,000 words in which to form an adequate response. Perhaps you are already aware of the impossibility of what is being asked, and your heart skips a beat. Whereas in, say, New Testament, there is a clear object to be studied - perhaps Paul, or John, or Colossians - here the object is an idea.

And the scope for answering the question is truly enormous. You have to integrate the whole teaching of Scripture with an awareness of the critical discussions that have been taking place on the matter in recent times; the two millennia of Christian thought lies on the table, running the whole gamut from Irenaeus to Miroslav Volf; you should have an awareness of philosophical challenges to the Christian view; some regard for the great creeds and confessions of the Church; and tie it all up in a tight and cogent argument.

How can anyone even begin to contemplate such a task?

I am hoping in the next series of posts to provide an apprentice's guide to the theological essay.

Here's the proposed outline:

1. What's the point? How not to lose heart before you start

2. What is 'theology' in any case? Isn't it just a summary of the Bible?

3. What is a theology essay?

4. Choosing the question

5. Analysing the question and framing a line of argument

6. How to read theology for essays, and what to read

7. Using the Bible in doing theology

8. Creeds and confessions

9. Standing on the shoulders of giants - and slaying some dragons: interacting with the tradition of Christian thought

10. Choose your enemies carefully - the practice of respectful disagreement

11. Contemporary theology and your essay

12. The place of philosophy and other disciplines

13. Finding people to talk with - making the most of the community experience

14. Three types of theological essay

15. The art of writing well in theological essays

16. Publishing your essay - why not?

17. Turning your theological essay into a sermon

Listen to True Feelings Conference lectures

Here

Summary of my Theological Anthropology and Emotions paper

here

Evangelicalism and 'High' Culture

I have been reading James Davison Hunter's fascinating book To Change the World - The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World.

There's lots to say about this provocative book, but one particular thing caught my eye. Hunter points out that evangelicalism as a movement is prodigious at cultural production at a popular level (esp in the US) but has almost no traction in 'high' culture.

There's good reasons for this. The instinct of evangelicalism is thoroughly egalitarian, in recognition of the significance of every human individual and the universal appeal of the gospel. Elitism is abhorrent to true Christianity and especially to missionary Christianity. As Hunter says, 'elitism for believers is despicable and utterly anathema to the gospel they cherish'. Heaven forbid that churches of all places be the sites of exclusion and condescension.

But populism has its own vices. As Hunter puts it:
the populism that is inherent to authentic Christian witness is often transformed into an oppressive egalitarianism that will suffer no distinction between higher and lower or better and worse. At its worst, it can take form as a 'tyranny of the majority' that will recognise no authority, nor hierarchy of value or quality or significance. When populism becomes a cultural egalitarianism, there is no incentive and no encouragement to excellence. (p. 94)

The dilemma that arises from this observation is this: the evangelical movement, which has aspirations to changing the world and not just winning souls, is addicted to a populism which is at odds with what we know about 'the dynamics of world-changing' - that is, that it comes from the production of excellent cultural items. As Hunter says:
there is an unavoidable tension between pursuing excellence and the social consequences of its achievenem; between leadership and an elitism that all too often comes with it. Is it possible to pursue excellence and, under God's sovereignty, be in a position of influence and privilege and not be ensnared by the trappings of elitism? (p. 94)

The trouble is, too, that this tendency to populism means that evangelical Christianity often imbibes the worst features of popular culture - its shallowness, its brittlenes and its attention deficit problems, for example.

Davison Hunter's overarching thesis, by the way, is that Christians need to remember that their calling is not to seize power or transform culture but to faithfully witness to it. Sounds like martyrdom to me!

The Markan Parables

Like the best riddles, the parables in The Gospel of Mark beckon to the reader, offering metaphors that are teasingly incomplete and slippery. They are difficult for the reader to ignore; but their vitality and interest spring from the way they focus attention on the processes of hearing, understanding and knowing, and consequently on the divisive nature of the kingdom of God. They are self-reflexive - they draw attention to their own medium. In doing so, the parables highlight Old Testament tropes, and especially accent the demise of national Israel augured in Isaiah. Indeed, the parables are part of the judgement they proclaim; and the negative response from Israel's leaders ironically fulfils their design. Mark’s readers, however, sit at a rather safer distance, with the knowledge of Jesus' death and resurrection aiding their understanding.

Within Jesus' teaching in Mark there is no clear demarcation of what material constitutes a parable per se. The word parabole is used of the narratives of the Sower (4:1-9) and the Wicked Tenants (12:1-12); but also of more simple metaphors like the Mustard Seed (4:30-2). The word is also used in 7:17 of Jesus' teaching on defilement; and in 13:28 when Jesus tells his disciples "from the fig tree learn its lesson” Jesus' feeding miracles operate in the same way as parables and cause the same kind of bewilderment among the disciples (8:17-21). What Jesus' verbal teachings – those that can be distinguished as "parables" - have in common is some metaphoric content and an open-endedness that makes them effective as a didactic tool. Jesus' teaching ministry is predominantly parabolic. Even in his repartee with the Syrophoenecian woman (7:24-30) he deploys metaphoric speech; and that she displays competence in this type of discourse appears linked to her success with him.

But what does he communicate through parables? Why are they such a prominent feature of the teaching of Mark’s Jesus? The parables seem alarmingly indirect and inconclusive. The enigmatic character of the parables can be illustrated by a reading of the "strong man' parable in 3:20-27. Jesus responds to accusations of insanity and demon possession 'in parables' (3:23). In 3:23-25 he makes what seem like mundane statements about whether Satan's kingdom can stand divided. 3:26 however is a little less reassuring. Having proven that Satan cannot cast out Satan, Jesus suggests that if he does "his end has come"; which by implication suggests that his end has not come, because here we do not see him divided - we see Jesus opposing him. What follows, the metaphor of the strong man (3:27), is a plan of attack on Satan, but a problematic one. Only one part of the metaphor has an obvious referent: the strong man, because of the previous verses, must be Satan. However, to what does the act of plundering his property refer? Jesus' ability to cast out demons? Has Satan already been "tied up"? How? No conclusions are given, although several are implied. The impact of a parable is not found in a single acicular message, contra the assertions of Jülicher last century, but in what it suggests. The reader/listener has to fill in the missing referents.

Modern and post-modern critics have found fertile ground in this uncertainty. Much of the debate centres around the Sower parable of Mark 4:1-10, naturally enough given Jesus' statement in 4:13:

Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables?

For John Dominic Crossan the very point of Jesus' parables is their polyvalence, their lack of closure:

Since you cannot interpret absolutely, you can interpret forever.

Yet Crossan has painted himself into a corner by dismissing Jesus' interpretation in 4:13-20 as inauthentic. For Crossan, the interpretation is inauthentic by definition. It also happens to disrupt the 'serenity' of Crossan's beloved polyvalence.

The general impulse of literary critics has been to agree with Crossan as to the open-endedness of the parables, but to re-insert them in their context: the narratives of the gospels. In his agnostic but erudite reading of Mark, The Genesis of Secrecy, Frank Kermode despairs of finding meaning at all, with the Sower parable as "the great crux" - a promise of meaning never delivered. He too finds "the authorised allegory seems inept”. This only seems enticing to a post­structuralist critic like Stephen D. Moore, who in a virtuoso performance of high deconstruction bungee-jumps gleefully over the “cliffs of fall” that so daunt Crossan and disappoint Kermode:

Parabo!e unsettles speech. It inhabits the oppositions of inside and outside, speech and writing, but only that it might... shake the interpretative (bed)frames so as to keep the interpreters restlessly turning over.

Critics such as Moore, Kermode and Crossan have taken the teasing language of the parables too one-dimensionally. Just because they don't produce meaning as ordinary texts do, does not mean they are meaningless, or endlessly polyvalent, or impossible to confine. It merely indicates that other reading strategies have to be engaged to understand their importance.

A reading of Mark 12:1-12 using such strategies will confirm this. Firstly, the parable immediately and very plainly evokes an Old Testament text, Isaiah 5:1-7. Jesus uses key words: “watchtower”, “vineyard”, “fence”, which immediately trigger associations - thematically, the vigorous judgement of God proclaimed in Isaiah against a recalcitrant Israel adheres to Jesus story. The Jewish leaders understand that the parable is told against them in 12:12 (they "fill in the missing referents"), a connection they must draw from Isaiah.

Secondly, there are key words from elsewhere in Mark that Jesus carefully inserts into the parable. The son in 12:6 is a "beloved son" , which Jesus himself is called in 1:11 and 9:7.

Thirdly, the parables are necessarily part of a narrative. This means we can read them in the light of events past and future. Jesus repeatedly predicts his death and resurrection in the second half of Mark (8:31, 9:31, 10:33). It is almost impossible to read Mark without feeling the ironic presence of the resurrection (a story which Mark, with further irony, feels he has no need to tell). In 12:1-12 it is hard to imagine that the reader does not know what is coming.

Fourthly, we are often given the opportunity to study a particular character's response to the parable, whether it be the disciples' blockheaded reactions or those of the scribes and elders as in 12:12. Their response seems a very good example of "hearing but not understanding".

By such methods, the importance of the parables becomes evident. However, the passage we must inevitably examine is 4:1-34, for here the bulk of Jesus' parabolic teaching gathers in a discourse which seems to be about parables. The text also draws the reader's attention through Jesus' cries of "Let anyone with ears to hear listen!" (4:9) and "Pay attention to what you hear" (4:24). As Fay's analysis attests, the concentric structure of the passage focuses attention on the interpretation in 4:14-20 flanked by two passages on "parabolic method" in 4:10-13 and 4:21-25.

What we discover in the "'interpretation" of the parable itself needs a little interpretative work. Jesus continues even here to use metaphoric language. Some information is given: the different types of ground represent different people's responses to the word. Soils ain’t soils. The processes of listening and responding are foregrounded. But what is the "word" which is sown? And what is the fruit that the good soil so abundantly produces? Again the reader has the advantage over the original hearers in that the end of the story is known. It is possible to see, for example, Jesus preaching his "word" in 1:14; and to see the various responses of characters in the text. The Pharisees have already conspired to destroy him in 3:6; the betrayal of Judas has been foreshadowed (3:19); and we have seen the shallow amazement of the crowds (2:12). Only a few continue to listen. Further, the way in which Old Testament motifs here reverberate adds a great deal to our understanding of the parables. Already we have been pointed to Isaiah 6 in 4:12. Craig A. Evans helpfully points out that Isaiah 55:10-11 likens God's word to the waters which give "seed to the sower and bread to the eater" More potently, Isaiah 6:13 concludes "The holy seed is its stump", a reference to the post-judgement remnant. Noticeably the word "seed" as a metaphor is quite fluid, slipping between "people" and "word". Isaiah 6 connects not only to the Sower parable, but extends to the other "seed" parables. Hence the kingdom of God that Jesus preaches appears small (like a mustard seed) in the context of lsrael. What is implied by the parables in the light of Isaiah is that with the coming of the Kingdom of God comes the punishment of Israel. This theme is extended in the Wicked Tenants parable. The quotation of Isaiah 6:9-10 reveals that the parables are deliberately divisive - they are the means by which the prophecy is carried out, an enactment of God's ancient curse on Israel. There are those toiV exw - "outside" (4:11). But the consummation of a new Israel is at the same time promised: the 12 are appointed in 3:13-19, new wineskins for the new wine. The sinister paradox in 4:24-5 verifies the significance of listening; and the harshness of judgement to those who listen but do not understand:

...from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

To the twelve and those who listen is given "the secret of the kingdom of God" (4:13). The musthrion, however, remains mysterious. It is given, but not revealed. The "lamp under a bushel basket" however raises the hope that the secret might be uncovered. Robert M. Fowler has no confidence that the secret is ever revealed to Mark's readers:

...the secret of the Kingdom of God is…definitely not given to the narratee through the discourse.

This is rather disturbing after the stern declaration of 4:12 that "they may indeed listen, but not understand."

Yet we should remember that the readers sit at an ironic distance from these words. The readers have knowledge that the disciples in Mark do not. For us, Jesus is identified as "the son of God" from the beginning. The reader, with the benefit of narrative hindsight, can see how Jesus taught of his death and resurrection. Heil posits that the Mark 4 parables

...point to inevitable future success despite failure for both Jesus and his disciples.

Indeed, seen retrospectively, the parables of 4:21-32 hint at the resurrection: the seed that sprouts "he knows not how" (4:27), the lamp under a bushel-basket (4:21-22), and the tiny mustard seed that grows into the "greatest of all shrubs" (4:31-32). A further irony is that when it comes to the resurrection, the event to which the whole text has been pointing, the reader is left with an empty tomb, itself an interpretative cavity needing to be filled. Like a parable, the entire gospel asks its reader to complete it - this time with the resurrected body of Jesus.

The parables are important to Jesus' teaching in Mark because they goad the reader to listen and understand. They proclaim a division in Jesus' listeners between those inside and those outside. In them the judgement of national Israel foretold in Isaiah is completed. Mark does not leave his readers as perplexed as the disciples however, or as critics such as Kermode and Crossan would like to presume. He enables them to read the parables in the light of what happened to Jesus on the cross and in the tomb.

New Publication: The Wisdom of the Cross - Exploring 1 Corinthians

A new publication The Wisdom of the Cross: Exploring 1 Corinthians has arrived in the stores.

It is edited by Brian Rosner and it is write-up of the papers given at 2010's School of Theology at Moore.

It includes my essay ‘ ‘In my judgement’: Christian ethics in 1 Corinthians. (But there are better ones than that!)