“On Barth, the Bible and Newspapers”

Barth is regularly quoted as saying that pastors and theologians need to read the Bible on one knee and the newspaper on the other. I’ve often wondered about the source of that quotation. While not the final word on the matter, it is worth a quick visit over to the Princeton Barth Center pages where this very issue is dealt with. The short answer is, No, Barth probably never said this is so few words (did he ever say anything in so few words?), though the spirit of the saying is close to something Barth would say. You can read about it here.

Praying with the Sick

A good friend of mine is taking the terrible journey through terminal cancer. He is not the first person close to me to have been attacked by this roaring lion of a disease. While some fend it off for a while, eventually, it seems, it often breaks through and attacks viciously and without mercy. Some miraculously escape, but the reality is–many do not. My mother-in-law, and my own father both died from cancer, and a nephew of mine came close (though we thank God that he was spared).

So how are we to pray for those brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering the attacks of serious illness like terminal cancer? I’m not the first to ask this question, and I certainly won’t the last. Who hasn’t struggled, as I do now, to know what to say and how to pray for my friend who is face-to-face with this ravaging disease? Sure, I email him once in a while, and give him a phone call, but even in those brief contacts, I’m usually at a significant loss for words. And to be frank, I’m not always much clearer in how to pray for him either. 

I am confident from Scripture and from the stories of God’s people that God can and will sometimes heal people of their illnesses, but I’m also very aware of the reality that he often doesn’t. When God does heal, we rejoice, realizing that healing in this present age is a sign of eschatological hope of the kingdom of God to come when these sicknesses will be finally over. But when God doesn’t heal as we wish, we lament and mourn, realizing that we still live in a world groaning under sin and awaiting its final redemption. So we try to give and take comfort in the promise that those who mourn will be comforted (Matt 5:4)–even if at the present time that comfort may seem so distant.  

Our pastor is continuing his series on Paul’s prayers, and this morning was preaching from the prayer found in Romans 15:5-6. Scripture there says,

 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (NIV)

I had started writing this before the sermon, and though Pastor Blayne didn’t mention sickness per se, it struck me as I listened that it is precisely “endurance and encouragement” that the terminally sick brother or sister in Christ needs most. But the question is: How can we pray so that such endurance and encouragement might come? 

In the first place, it is vital that Christians struggling with sickness sense in our interactions with them that our words and our actions are done in the name of Jesus Christ (Cf. Col 3:17), in whom we are spiritually unified with that person. Let’s face it: In and of ourselves, we have nothing to offer. We cannot bring healing, we cannot enter the depths of the person’s heart and drive out darkness and despair. In fact, the words that we do say often slip off our tongues sounding so empty. Ministry must therefore begin with the theological realism of our human inadequacy. So as we haltingly enter into those situations where we walk alongside and pray for those who suffer, we must do so continually asking the Spirit to reveal to both sickand well person alike the unity we have in Christ. But why is this important?

Though I cannot speak from first hand experience of having gone through the valley of the shadow of death myself, I have sensed that critically, and especially terminally, ill people are constantly enshrouded in shadows–especially shadows of loneliness and helplessness.   Even if there are many people surrounding the sick person, terminal sickness tragically tends to isolate persons in their helplessness. Because neither sick person nor companion is able to “do” or “say” anything to change the situation, this helplessness may actually paradoxically result in an intensifying of the person’s loneliness and his overwhelming feeling of darkness. So even in the presence of friends and family, whose own helplessness is often palpable, the sick person can potentially end up feeling lonelier than ever.  Consequently, it at such times of loneliness and darkness that the reality of the unity the brother and sister in Christ has with the sick person is so vitally important to focus upon.  And though sickness may isolate, it is only as we pray for the Spirit of unity found in Christ alone that “endurance and encouragement” may come. 

But if the unity in Christ is the issue at stake, then we who are left to deal with the ever increasing realization that our loved one is fighting a losing battle are probably in need of a good dose of “endurance and encouragement” ourselves. Consequently, we shouldn’t be surprised that sometimes we may leave the room feeling strangely encouraged by the spirit of peace mysteriously made manifest in the sick person. I saw some brief manifestations of joy in the last days of my mother-in-law’s life, and though I missed it with my Dad, my family tells me that this also happened with him in his last hours, even in the midst of his pain. And I know others have told me similar kinds of stories of saints gone home. Thus, perhaps we should not hesitate to interpret those brief moments, however fleeting, as a reminder that even in the face of death, the unity we have with the person in Christ is not broken. Death is still the final enemy to be conquered, but even death cannot rob the Christian of his or her joy. In fact, sick persons who have already come to the end of their own resources may sometimes sense in a more intense and acute way the presence of Christ more than well people ever could.  In such times, though it may be us who have come to minister to the person, we may find that we have to humbly accept being ministered to.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer notes, “The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile, sees in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the Triune God. Visitor and visited in loneliness recognize in each other the Christ who is present in the body.” (Life Together, 20) (This highlight as well that we must remember that theologically it is never us who ministers, but Christ who ministers through us. The fact that a sick person–even a sick person barely able to communicate to us–can actually minister to us is good evidence that ministry is finally the work of Christ).

But note secondly that Paul does not pray primarily for endurance and encouragement; rather, his primary request is that God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ might be glorified. Yes, we can pray for endurance and encouragement for the person who is sick, but in so doing, we may need to remember that these are by-products that arise as we sense and experience the unity of spirit in Christ and pray that God would be glorified. And so, though we may not be able to know what to say or do for the seriously ill, we can know how we can pray–that in the midst of sickness, whether through healing or even through death, that God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ may be magnified in and through it all. After all, the final purpose of both the healed or sick Christian is one and the same: to witness to the glory to God. Whether we mourn in loss, or rejoice in the triumph of healing, it is all pointless and seriously misdirected if we do not direct both our mourning and our praise to the God of encouragement and endurance. 

So my practical pastoral advice for praying with the sick is this: First, when called upon to be with those in serious sickness, by all means, do not hesitate to remind the person that you are there not just as a friend or even family member, but first and foremost as a brother and sister in Christ. It is this bond which is the most important, even more than being a relative or even a spouse. Second, pray with the person–even if it is short. Remember: Ministry is Christ’s to accomplish, not ours, and Jesus is able graciously to take our stammering tongues and to use them for his purposes. So by all means, pray that God would restore the person to health if you feel so led by the Spirit. But in praying for that, don’t neglect to ask God for the greater thing, mainly,  that  the sick person might have a renewed sense of her or his belonging to the body of Christ. And third and most importantly, pray with the person that in all things, whether in life or death, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ would have the glory. By praying this way,  we can wait expectantly that God will come in his own way to give endurance and encouragement both to the person in his or her suffering, and to those of us praying alongside.

Did Jesus Go to Church?

I also have my Truth and Method class read the little classic article by B. B. Warfield called, “The Religious Life of Theological Students.” It seems that every time I read it, there is a new nugget. In light of my recent comments on going to church, this struck home especially for me:

Surely, if ever there was one who might justly plead that the common worship of the community had nothing to offer him it was the Lord Jesus Christ. But every Sabbath found him seated in his place among the worshipping people and there was no act of stated worship which he felt himself entitled to discard. Even in his most exalted moods and after his most elevating experiences, he quietly took his place with the rest of God’s people, sharing with them in the common worship of the community. . . . ‘He entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue, on the Sabbath day.’ ‘As his his custom was’! Jesus Christ made it his habitual practice to be found in his place on the Sabbath day at the stated place of worship to which he belonged. (38)

Warfield, Benjamin B. “The Religious Life of Theological Students.” Themelios 24, no. 3 (May 1999): 31-41.

Teaching this Week

Even though I’m on sabbatical, I’ve agreed to teach a one week seminary modular this term which begins today. It is called “Truth and Method: Authority, Formation, and Practice of Theology.” (subtitled, “With apologies to Hans Georg Gadamer.”)  I begin the class today with reflections on Psalm 19. Of course, I can’t go into the detail here, but I’ve become increasingly struck with the the last verse, v. 14: “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” 

When all is said and done, it is far less about whether the teaching has been clear, whether the thoughts have been profound, or whether my students like me, but whether the words and meditations are pleasing to God. That is my prayer as I start this week. Your prayers are appreciated.

Unimaginable, Unthinkable Prayer

Pastor Banting is preaching  through the “prayers of Paul” at our Church these weeks. Today his text was Eph 3:14-21. I was especially struck by his observation that the ability to comprehend Christ’s love is, really, beyond and above us, and can only be known “together with all the saints.” Only the Church as a whole can begin to claim full knowledge of Christ and his love, for it is the breadth and width of the church universal in all of history for whom Christ has given himself.  My individual knowledge of that love, taken on its own, while certainly a “piece of the divine love pie,” is far from complete in its perception of God’s love in Christ. 

That lead me to think a bit beyond what Blayne was explicitly focusing on, particularly as I pondered the statement in Eph 3:20: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us . . .” (ESV). I like also the way the NIV puts it, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” 

I remember many times when my dad would pray something like this at the end of his prayers, apparently directly inspired by Scripture. Dad would say, “Do more for us, Lord, than we can ever ask or imagine.” I remember as a kid not exactly knowing what that meant, and I suppose I had never thought of it quite like I did today. Til now I had thought that this statement in Eph 3:20 was saying, “Pray big! God can do so very much, so why ask so little!” Now, that may be true as far as it goes. It is true that “we have not because we ask not.” But I don’t think that it really what is being taught here. So what IS it saying?

It seems to me that we need to realize, first,  that this is a “doxology.” It is a statement uttered in worship of the immense greatness of the powerful God addressed in this prayer. Second, given the fact that this a record of the apostle’s worship of God, it is, maybe surprisingly, not even to be taken as a directive about how to pray as much as a revelatory reminder of our smallness relative to God’s immense greatness! In fact, let me suggest that this Pauline statement may be quite the opposite of the idea of “praying big.” If anything it is, “Don’t presume to think that your prayers can capture the immensity of what God can do. Whatever you can ask or imagine is, [to play on a favourite phrase of the early Barth and Kierkegaard] ‘infinitely and qualitatively less’ than what God can do. So when you do pray, go ahead–”pray big!” But when you do, be humble enough to accept that God’s answer may be far beyond what you could have ever dreamed of asking or imagining or thinking in the first place. And in so humbling ourselves, we may find that what we thought of at first as a “big prayer” was really, well, rather small and possibly even self-centred. 

The practical import of this is that we sometimes approach prayer as if we knew, in advance, what it is that God needs to do. “Send me money! Heal this person! Stop that government bill! Find me a mate! Get me a job! Make sure that candidate is elected, etc. etc.” This not to say that we shouldn’t pray these kinds of things–by all means, if you are so led, pray away! But perhaps the important reminder of this doxology is that once we’ve asked, we shouldn’t be surprised if God’s answer eventually cames in a form and manner entirely qualitatively and quantitatively different than we might have expected from the outset. In fact, we may miss answered prayer simply because we assume that unless God answered in accordance to the limits imposed by my thinking and imagining that it is not an answered prayer at all!

But this doxology reminds us that God is able to do MORE than we can ask or imagine. We may ask, even in good conscience, for this, but the doxology always reminds us that in the end, the wisdom, goodness, and power of God–even that power of the Spirit living in us–may actually mean that the prayer is better answered with that. 

God is not restricted to the boundaries we impose on him in our prayer, but in worship, we acknowledge that our boundaries are not God’s, and that his ways are not our ways! In short, we cannot, by definition, pray the unimaginable or the unthinkable. That would be to pray beyond our limits as humans. But thanks be to God that he is not restricted to answering our prayers in accordance to the confines of our thinking or imagining!

Going to Church

A quick quotation from Barth on the Church on a Sunday morning–just before I head off to Church…

Put pointedly and to be taken cum grano salis [= "with a grain of salt"] there exist over against Jesus Christ, not in the first instance believers, and then, composed of them, the Church; but first of all the Church and then, through it and in it, believers. While God is as little bound to the Church as to the Synagogue, the recipients of His revelation are. They are what they are because the Church is what it is, and because they are in the Church, not apart from the Church and not outside the Church. And when we say “Church”, we do not mean merely the inward and invisible coherence of those whom God in Christ calls His own, but also the outward and visible coherence of those who have heard in time, and have confessed to their hearing, that in Christ they are God’s. The reception of revelation occurs within, not without, this twofold coherence. (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/2, 211.)

My own comment, also to be taken with a grain of salt, is that despite the theological reservation we now have about saying that “we are going to Church today,” there is a sense in which this is nevertheless true. Individual believers, while members comprising the Church of Christ, can still think about “going to church” if it means that such going is an active recognition that “it isn’t all about me.” Going to church can remind us that God’s work is bigger than the work that has consumed me the rest of the week.

Exploring “positive secularity” (?)

Rather than burying this in a comment to a previous post, I’ll just start a new post…

First off, I probably should have dug a bit deeper on the concept of “positive secularity.” Sarcozy was hardly the first to suggest this idea, but was suggested already in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI himself.

I don’t think we know nearly enough about the concept of “positive secularity” (see earlier post) to engage in a fair critique, or even to speculate if this idea has parallels to Canadian ideas. My intent in citing Sarcozy was not to critique him (even though I gave an initial, perhaps unfair, jab myself) but to explore whether the very idea of “positive secularity” could be a fruitful way to help us to begin to clarify why allowing religion into the mix in public dialogue has been so problematic. (Whatever Sarcozy meant or means by the phrase, while not unimportant, it is somewhat beside the point here.) That is, the reason I can’t critique “positive secularity” here is precisely because it is an idea waiting to be filled out–something I want to do here. The idea may not prove ultimately to be fruitful, but it is far too early in the conversation to conclude that. Thus the deliberate question mark in the original title of the post.

Before filling the concept out, though, we do need to be clear that I (and many others) see an important difference between “secularism” and “secularity”–terms which have often been thrown about as synonyms, when in fact they are not. While probably an oversimplification, the main difference is that “secularism” is an ideological stance, while “secular” or “secularity” is meant to describe an “actuality” or “state of being.” That is, the reality is that the Canadian system of governance is “secular”–it is a system of governance which at a practical level operates in such a way that no one religious position is privileged in the day-to-day governance. The question is whether that secular reality in governance has led to a view of the State that is ideologically committed to “secularism,” where not only is no religion privileged (“secular”), but religion is, a priori, barred wholesale from participation (i.e., “secularism”). Further, I want to point out that it is still unclear (at least to me) where the Canadian state stands between being “secular,” on one hand, and being being ideologically “secularist,” on the other. But it DOES seem clear to me that the population of Canada is far from being “secular”–Canadians are still very religious in outlook, even if we grant that there are many who see themselves as completely secular or non-religious. And herein is the dilemma we face: Is it possible to live in a “religiously diverse” context which is governed by a “secular state” and yet allow religious people (with religious ideas, no less!) to engage in the public debate (i.e., “positive secularity”)? Or does a secular state necessitate that religion be barred a priori from public debate (i.e., “negative secularity”, or indeed, ’secularism’)? 

A question of the how “tolerance” is used these days was mentioned by Barry and Bill. While there are many problems with the way “tolerance” is thrown around these days as a watchword, I don’t think having a commit to tolerance per se is necessarily the problem. There is a positive and negative sense of tolerance as well. And just because we may think that the form of tolerance often appealed to in Canadian society is in fact condescending and negative, (and frankly, intolerant of those with religious views!), this does not mean that there is not a good (dare I say, biblical) view of tolerance that could be translated into a politically usable concept. Can we conceive of a country where the state allows for freedom for religious claims to be included in debates concerning the public good without necessarily saying that we have thereby now committed to allowing one religion to be privileged? Again, the contrast between “negative” and “positive secularity” might be helpful to show that a “secular” country need not necessarily be ideologically secularist, even if that seems to be the path we have been on.  

I think Sarcozy’s phrase “positive secularity” might be useful in helping us to ask this: Since our society consists of religious and non-religious alike, why is it that the “late modern liberal democracy” can only be understood to work best by shutting out all religious opinion in public dialogue and debate in favour of purely non-religious opinions and options? (This is what I am calling “negative secularity”, or perhaps more accurately, just plain old “secularism”).  Is it not possible to conceive of a country operating under a principle of “positive secularity” in which no one religion is de facto favoured in reference to goverance, but which nevertheless does not see its role as suppressing the reality of religious plurality in favour of a “non-religious” position as the only legitimate point of public debate? Is there not a way to allow Christians to speak AS Christians, and Muslims to speak as Muslims, and atheists to speak as atheists in public debate about public policy without necessarily privileging, before the debate begins, the non-religious position?

It is this sense of “freedom” that I think O’Donovan (as noted in my previous post) is trying to get us to think about. It is a freedom that we as Christians believe is enabled by what God has done in Christ–even a freedom that allows non-Christians freedom not to be Christian, even while Christians are free to be and to speak as–Christians. We are free to speak as Christians, and we are free to allow others to speak as non-Christians, precisely because under Christ’s authority, there is no human authority that is ultimately binding to conscience and conviction?

I like the way Karl Barth poignantly puts it, “[Christ's] kingdom is neither a barracks nor a prison, but the home of those who in, with, and by Him are free.” (Church Dogmatics, II/2, 311).

“Positive Secularity”?

I saw this morning that the Catholic international news agency, Zenit, reported on September 12, 2008, that French President Sarkozy greeted the visit of Pope Benedict XVI with a speech that promoted what he called a “positive secularity.” Zenit quotes President Sarkozy as saying,

It would be crazy to deprive ourselves of religion; [it would be] a failing against culture and against thought. For this reason, I am calling for a positive secularity. . . . A positive secularity offers our consciences the possibility to interchange — above and beyond our beliefs and rites — the sense we want to give to our lives.

While Sarkozy unfortunately slips into a kind of “secular transcendence” by wanting an interchange “above and beyond our beliefs and rites” (if we talk above and beyond our beliefs, I’m not sure what kind of non-trivial things we would end up talking about!) I nevertheless like the basic connotations of the idea of a positive secularity (without knowing fully what Sarkozy really means by it). I like it especially if for no other reason than it highlights the potential for a different kind of societal ethos over against a “negative secularity” in which all religious interchange is ruled out of court in advance in favour of some supposed “neutral” (and I would argue, chimeral) non-religious standpoint. In fact, the notion of positive secularity arguably better allows for a fundamental commitment to freedom over against a negative secularity that finds itself in the awkward situation of having to limit freedom of religious expression and interchange of ideas to preserve a minimalist lowest common denominator devoid of all religious language.

Oliver O’Donovan rightly points out that a commitment to the Gospel is finally a commitment to freedom (cf. 2 Cor 3:18 – “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”), particularly freedom from the absolute political and religious claims of fallen humans. As he notes, by sending Jesus Christ, in whom all authority in heaven and earth rests, “God has done something which makes it impossible for us any more to treat the authority of human society as final and opaque.” (Desire of Nations, 253).

The challenges of what a positive secularity would look like are probably just as massive as the challenges of trying to figure out how to accomodate religious conviction in what appears to have been a failing experiement in “negative secularity.” But maybe this small shift from the negative to positive could be an interesting starting point for discussion about the place of religion in a secular society nonetheless.

Have you read Scripture (publicly) today? (pt.1)

What was Paul was expecting of the young Timothy when he said, among other things, to “give attention to the public reading of scripture” [Greek, anagnosei ]? Most modern English translations interpret this word to mean “public reading of Scripture” (NIV, NASB, RSV, NRSV, NLT, ESV), even though the words “public” and “Scripture” are not in the original text. The  KJV and NKJV  simply translate the phrase more literally as “give attention to reading.” While there is no explicit mention in the text that this “reading” was in fact  to be done in a public manner, commentators seem generally to agree that the presence of articles in front of the three main words in 1 Tim 4:13 (“the reading, the preaching, the teaching” or “the reading, the exhortation, the doctrine”) probably indicate that Paul was telling Timothy to carry out the public tasks expected of an overseer ordained (cf. 1 Tim 4:14) to serve a congregation. This is not an exhortation to make sure Timothy kept studying on his own (even if that was and is valuable) nor is this an imperative to engage in “one-on-one discipleship” whereby he sought to engage a few here and there in exhortation and teaching (again, as important as that may be). This is, rather, an imperative to pastor Timothy to ensure, that amidst everything else he had to worry about, that Scripture (and let’s not forget that this was, at Timothy’s time, the Old Testament) was heard regularly by those in his care (reading), that Scripture’s import was delivered to the people (preaching), and that the people thereby were taught to discern truth from error (teaching/doctrine). False teachers of Timothy’s day (cf 4:1ff) were no doubt spreading their divisive didactic wares, and there is good reason to conclude, along with most modern translators, that Paul indeed was encouraging Timothy to carry on the practice of public reading of Scripture to those in the congregation–a practice likely already familiar to those raised in the synagogue. 

So how are we doing here? Evangelicals, oddly enough, for all our insistence about the authority of Scripture, haven’t necessarily done so well in carrying out this task of reading Scripture publicly–though I can happily say that I am seeing some signs of change here. I’m glad to see my own Church in the past few years dedicating time in our services to having increased public reading of Scripture. Nevertheless, do we evangelicals not have to admit that our brothers and sisters in the mainline traditions tend to hear much more Scripture read publicly than in our own churches? In fact, most traditional liturgies require an Old Testament reading, a reading from the Gospels, AND a reading from an Epistle in every service. No doubt, we evangelicals still pride ourselves on preaching and teaching from the Scriptures, but proportionally, we still publically preach from Scripture significantly more than we read Scripture itself.

Not that proportionality of reading to preaching is necessarily the point here. Five words of Scripture is greater than 5000 words of the preacher. As Karl Barth said, “Even the smallest, strangest, simplest, or obscurest among the biblical witnesses has an incomparable advantage over even the most pious, sholarly, and sagacious latter-day theologian.” (Evangelical Theology, 31-2). Yet the question still remains: Why have we sought to master the tasks of preaching and teaching, but have paid so little attention to the reading? 

Beyond this preliminary question, may I be so bold as to suggest that perhaps part of the reason we are so skeptical that the preaching of the Word is the Word of God is because we have failed to heed what I believe to be this deliberate, Pauline ordering of reading, preaching, teaching. Let me explain.

If we take the ordering of what Paul says to Timothy quite seriously, it may be that Paul is saying, Pay attention to READING, to PREACHING (Exhortation), and to TEACHING (Doctrine)–in that order. Or put in more stark terms, Don’t preach until you’ve read, and don’t teach until you’ve preached.  

Don’t preach until you’ve read, or at least, don’t preach without making it very clear that Scripture stands above and over our preaching. Preaching’s primary source, after all, is Scripture, and the public reading of Scripture helps to ensure that preaching, by itself, does not supplant the Word of God. Preaching in the absence of deliberate and attentive reading of the Scriptures is rootless. But by setting the reading of Scripture and preaching together, the Church invites those who are in hearing range to distinguish between the word of God and the word of man; by publicly reading Scripture, the Church invites the Spirit who inspires Scripture also to help hearers to discern the difference between God’s Word and the human word.

Furthermore, don’t teach until you’ve preached, or at least, don’t teach as if preaching is irrelevant to what it taught. If the Pauline ordering here is significant, Paul may be warning Timothy that teaching done in the absence of public reading of Scripture and of preaching is in danger of being demonically deceptive (cf. 1 Tim 4:1), not to mention the danger of the teacher him or herself being self-deluded.  Such teaching may even be in danger of falling prey to the falsities that the Spirit warns about in 1 Tim 4:2–teaching that proceeds from “hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seered as with a hot iron.” False teachers, after all, have often been characterized by their “lone ranger” style, desiring accountability neither to Scripture itself, nor to their overseers (elders, pastors, bishops, etc.). Moreover, teachers can sometimes view themselves as the self-appointed critic of the preacher. (I know I have to say, “Guilty!”) But the Pauline order may well set preachers and teachers into proper relationship.  Only as a teacher views him or herself as authorized by Word of God and the preaching of the Gospel will his or her teaching be safeguarded from didactic isolation. Granted, the teacher may at time need to serve in the very uncomfortable way of pointing out error to the preacher, but the teacher can never forget that his or her task is in service to the overall priority of the Church in public reading and preaching of the Word.

It is common to hear laments over the “biblical illiteracy” of the average pew sitter these days, and it can be easy for those of us with a theological degree (or degrees) in the theological disciplines, or for us as pastors and teachers, to complain about how we are constantly forced to “dumb down” so that people can understand what we consider to be the simplest concepts of Scripture. But perhaps a good part of the responsibility for the woeful biblical illiteracy needs to be placed squarely back into our court. Obviously a good reason to find ways to incorporate greater Scripture reading into our time of worship is simply to be obedient to this Pauline directive given to Timothy (and to us). But perhaps public Scripture reading may also be contribute in a significant way to reversing the biblical illiteracy we all seem so concerned about. Consider that many people in the pews never crack a Bible open all week. Perhaps we need to admit that they may not do it because they have not see it done regularly even in Church on Sunday morning.

The Ultimate Theology Comprehensive Exam

Something a bit lighter for Friday afternoon…may you not face these questions if you are facing comprehensive exams or ordination. Have a great weekend!

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The Ultimate Comprehensive Exam in Theology (may also be used as a General Ordination Exam)

1. Summarize Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae in three succinct sentences. You may use your Bible.

2. Irenaeus, Pope Clement VII and Martin Luther King, Jr. were not contemporaries. Had they known each other, how might the history of the Reformation have turned out differently?

3. Devise an ethical system that would satisfy Anabaptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Fundamentalists, and the entire population of Ancient Rome, ca. 3rd century BC.

4. Memorize the Greek NT according to the NA27 and the Textus Receptus texts, recite both, and provide an apologetic for the superiority of one version over the other.

5. Imagine you have the stigmata. Would it affect your productivity in sermon preparation?  Would you still be admitted into fine restaurants? Would it be covered by your medical insurance, or should it constitute a pre-existent condition?

6. What would it mean to be eternal, co-eternal, and non-existent all at once?

7. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo decide to rob a bank. The note to the teller is 1,200 pages long, not counting footnotes, complete with a promise of damnation if the teller does not accept immediate Baptism.  In the middle of the heist, they engage in an extended debate as to whether or not the money really exists.  Are they committing a mortal or a venial sin?

8. Speculate on what the current status of salvation history might have been if Abraham had just stayed in Ur.  You have 2 pages.

9. Define God. Use examples if necessary.

10. Provide a compelling resolution to the infralapsarian/supralapsarian debate. You may use your Bible, but not Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics.

Bonus question

11. Hymns or choruses? Provide an answer that will persuade all parties and all generations.