For the week of Sunday, January 30, 2022
Dear Friends,
The art of theology is unlike some of the other esteemed professions that people have pursued over the centuries One could say, for example, that a "good" physician is one who successfully brings healing to people when they are ill. Likewise, a "good" teacher is one with the gift of imparting necessary information to students, and at the same time stirring up in them a passion for the subject under consideration. A "good" lawyer is able to pursue successfully a measure of justice for societies and individuals, usually with reference to some sort of founding document, like our Constitution.
But what makes for a "good" theologian? The question is complicated by two facts of life in our contemporary Church. One is that just about every person believes himself/herself to be a competent theologian, even if they have never opened a book on the subject. I can tell you from my days teaching at seminary that it was the only graduate school I've ever experienced where the students were convinced on Day 1 that they knew more about the subject than I did. The other fact of life is that every Christian person actually IS a theologian, most of them not very good ones for the reason I just mentioned. Many equate "theology" with "what I happen to think about religion and to whom I prefer to listen on the topic." At best that is catechism. At worst it is thoughtless default to personal biases.
For me, the best definition of "good theology" came from one of my mentors in school. It's a little squishy, as theology tends to be, and it consists of three parts. First, good theology is one that is rooted in the scriptures and the long Tradition of our Church (which means people actually have to know the content of such things). Second, good theology will have the capacity to speak meaningfully to Christians today in their current life circumstances. If it fails to do that, then what are we doing this for? Third, good theology will have as its end a necessary demand for discipleship/ministry/evangelization. That's the way it has ever been, although the precise contours of that demand can and have changed over time.
I hope we all aspire to be good theologians, rather than something less.
Fr. Mike