New Year, New Church and the Academy Website

Not Karl Barth

For those of you who might not know, I'm involved with a group known as the Church and the Academy (no, it's not a cult!) We meet monthly during term time in the Theology Dept. of the University of Glasgow to hear and discuss what is going on in the multifarious aspects of the theological world. I see it as not just an important therapeutic tool to keep the brain ticking over, but an important reminder of the connection between the disciplines of pastoral and intellectual endeavour. It is far too easy to say that what we learned at theological college has no substantial bearing in the 'real world'. Such an attitude (which I confess, I have been tempted to indulge) merely betrays an unmerited suspicion of the critical aspect of theological study. In its extreme form the argument runs: We ought to know what we believe (2 Timothy 1: 12) and any attempt to critique that belief is tantamount to replacing faith with rational argument.

This argument (if it is an argument) ignores verses 13 and 14 of the same chapter in Timothy which eloquently speaks of guarding the good treasure, i.e. sound teaching, of the faith. Some people take this guarding to the point where the treasure is invisible to all but the one holding it. They become like Gollum holding on tightly to his 'precious' and prepared to kill any who would dare even look at it the wrong way... Okay, that does sound kind of cultist, but you get the point. It is far too easy to hold on tightly to what we believe to be the fundamentals of life (creating, by the way, a fist in the process) thinking that we are doing God or the Faith a favour. The reality is that God is big enough to look after God. Wasn't it Luther who said, "Defend the Bible, I'd sooner defend a lion!?" The 'guarding' Paul is asking of Timothy is grounded in the experience of sharing the faith by the help of the Holy Spirit in us. We are to be channels rather than curators of faith. And that is where theological reflection has a vital role to play.