I am back from the conference and I think it is a good idea if I reflect on it pretty quickly after it. I engaged with the conference on three levels, topics relevant to my thesis, as an ethnographer and finally as someone who is working out their own vocation which is connected with being a Doctor of the Church. I will try reflecting on them in order.
Topics relevant to my thesis
As far as theology goes I have three labels that are pretty easy to wear. I am contextual, Reformed and also liturgical. The last one is a complete surprise to me. As a contextual theologian I am less likely to interested in the precise theology of a historical theologian although I might know they well (A talk on Schliermacher showed me quite adequately why people ever so often think either I should read him or have read him; I have pretty limited actual acquaintance but as I think from a fairly similar position often around similar issues there are a lot of resonances). Listening to the other two papers in the Reformed seminar and the one URC one in another were interesting. Perhaps one of the most telling things was the individual from the International Baptist College who was doing a paper on a Roman Catholic theologian because the resonance of his thought with what he experienced growing up as Roman Catholic despite his conversion to Baptist due to religious experience. A person can leave their tradition but as a rule a tradition does not leave a person.
As Reformed I found that quite often there is an ignoring of the Reformed tradition of splitting the process of Salvation from the process of Sanctification. It is quite an important difference. Salvation is on God's time scale, therefore based in eternity with moments where it breaks through into our time scale, the whole incarnation story being one of them, judgement day is another. A conversion experience may or may not be. The sanctification process is the action of the holy spirit in the believers life, as such it takes place within our own time scale. It is on going. It is on it that practical piety is based. You need to distinguish between the two. As my father said "faith is its own assurance" and that is the whole of faith not one segment of it. Another is that I am aware that English Reformed tradition for historical reasons has taken shall we say the road less travelled. There is a tension in Reformed tradition
Reformata (Reformed) and semper Reformandum (always being Reformed).The more conservative of temperament tend to emphasis Reformata, that is the continuity with historic Reformed doctrine normally by adopting set formulations of the faith e.g. The Westminster Confession as normative. The more liberal tend to put emphasis on semper Reformandum, that is the ongoing re-alignment of the church with respect to the context, guided by the Holy Spirit through Scripture. It is a lot more fluid. The point being that English Reformed tradition has pretty solidly stuck with the second. It may well be alone in this, or it may be the case that it is shared by other Reformed traditions where the Reformed church has been subordinate to another tradition. Where Reformed churches have got strongly identified with national identity nearly always the first has dominated.
As someone with an interest in liturgy, I was very much at home in the seminar I went to. The disconnect I felt at the Society for Liturgical Studies was not there, although strongly dominated by more formal liturgical traditions. Reformed worship is profoundly liturgical, we have our whole theology of liturgy and in this case it was allowed to stand as a theology in its own right and not over written by those of a more formal tradition. What was interesting is whereas the Society for Liturgical Studies definitely had worship as part of its time table this group didn't. It is however surprising how many people don't realise that a place of transformation is a place of risk and therefore therefore it is oxymoronic to describe it as safe. Safe is incompatible with change.
Reflecting as an Ethnographer
To start with let me say, I did not think as clearly as perhaps I should have done about the ethnographic implications of me going to this conference. Central to my research topic is the dynamic between the tradition and the local congregation. The Reformed tradition is quite strongly influenced by its theological tradition, indeed on of the papers was on the nature of this. Therefore it was an opportunity to reverse the ethnographic direction. To actually see how those who might be seen as holding the tradition felt about their relationship with the local congregations.
There are several things that I would comment on. Firstly the fact that theology covers a wide spectrum of ideas and I don't think I heard from a single historical theologian at all. There are people who are studying in depth a particular aspect of a theologians life, there are theologians who are philosophical theologians who are working at how different aspect of theological ideas look through the lenses of different philosophies, there are liturgical theologians who are focusing on getting better understandings of the worship of the church, there are Biblical theologians who are interested in the relationship between the Bible and aspects of theology and there are sociological theologians who are looking at phenomena in the church life and asking how these fit with theological ideas. There maybe other groups I have missed. In sociology there is a common language that allows the postmodern autoethnographer to talk to the large scale survey based objectivist. They don't agree about anything but they have a language to disagree with. Do theologians have such a language? If not, is it a single discipline?
Related to this is the fact that there were three URC people there and they all fitted into a single category of Sociological theologians. Is there some reason why people in the URC are currently drawn to this particular stance?
Much of the talk was of the gap between the church and the theologian, I will come back to that later. There is I think another gap opening and being felt and that is between the theologian in the academy and the theologian in the church. I was hearing the complaint by those who were not within academic institutions that they felt isolated and cut off from the flow of theological ideas in the academy and from discussion. Some of this is the loneliness of the part time doctoral student.
Thesis writing is a lonely business and writing a thesis part time can be doubly so, at least intellectually lonely; you have very little time or opportunity to interact with like minded people. Often to get into the department takes determined effort and when we get there we are keyed into using the resources as well as possible. I should know I haven't been in mine for about a couple of years (although I have seen my supervisor regularly). It is difficult to find the energy and often simply have not got the time to develop collegiality on a regular basis with other students. Also it often depends on other students being organised for the same day as you. That was one of the reasons why the conference was so subscribed. However if there is more than this, then it needs addressing and it needs addressing quite urgently as these are the academy's ambassadors to the Church. The people who are able to talk and use theology in situ, and make it work.
Let me now look at the gap between the church and the theologian. There is perhaps good reason why theology at this time is looking to strengthen its ties with the Church, in the current economic climate the funding from the secular bodies is vulnerable. It makes sense therefore to strengthen your bonds with other sources of support and for theology the Church has to be one of them.
It seems to me however that there are two discourses at work here. There are two strong discourse at play here. Firstly there is the discourse of the good academic, the one who cites their sources, who ask the awkward question and seeks out the answer, who is into knowledge for its own sake and crosses boundaries in order to get that. Then there is the faith one, this is often into the orthodoxy, right belief, having things correct to give a coherency to the life of the believer. Both of these are very much authoritative approaches, with the first it is the discourse of having read, if you like the authority of the scribes who cited earlier scribes although the creative side pushes people further. The second is very much about being able to get things right. Sometimes these discourses work together, sometimes they are antagonistic. Good theology is done when these two are held in tension. When they work together then they can create a very fast flowing dynamic when in tension they can create some seriously rough experiences.
If the academy wants to move closer to the church, it is going to have to be prepared to take the churches concern with orthodoxy more seriously. It can only afford to ignore this when it is independent. That will create tensions and the academy needs to be aware that if the church needs good theologians what it means by "good" is NOT what the academy means.
Also there is a tendency is for people to suggest to beginners that they do should not go into this stream because of the way the water runs, but there is a problem that there is no other stream. So the beginners are left with trying to learn to swim on dry ground. The only way around this is for the experienced to act as teachers of the beginners and not just tell them to get out of the water. That means noting that anyone who attempts to swim is wanting to be a swimmer. They may not be good at it, but they still desire it. Telling to get out the water because they can't swim is daft, if they do that (and I suspect plenty have) they will never learn to swim. A basic understanding that anyone can be a questioner after truth about God, and the act of validating the question if not the answer is important. It means the theologian has to learn humility, the ability to talk with sincerity at the level of the lesser skilled without treating their questions as invalid.
Finally as this conference well demonstrated, theology is not primary textual it is verbal. It is in debate, interaction and argument that ideas are created formed and tested. That goes as well for me the introvert as for the most extrovert theologian. This is partly why collegiality and such is important and why this conference drew people. Also Theology does not bear one of the hall marks of a writing based subject, it shows limited involvement with the practice of writing. Ethnography is and does, (quick search on Amazon, 1 book on writing theology, at least 8 for ethnography and where is the theological equivalent of
writing across boundaries). A written discipline is more than a discipline where the vast amount of communication is textual (otherwise all disciplines are written today).
As you can see it was an ethnographically rich experience. There is a problem however with this, it makes everything doubly concentrated. Unfortunately participant-observation is a preferred learning style for me. I first did it before I knew anything of ethnography, when I went on a Qualitative Analysis course not to learn how to do Qualitative Analysis but to learn how Qualitative Analysts think, understand and approach research. Imagine telling ethnographers that you are with them because you are doing participant observation on them! Fortunately I was not doing it to write a paper but for personal development. My job required me to support them so I thought the more I understood about them the better I could do that job.
As a Doctor of the Church
I don't often use the formal title for my vocation, I know I am called to study, but to claim beyond that seems presumptuous of me. Indeed my minister uses the title for me more than I do. It is in the end not a title I can claim; only the title of a role in which I seek to serve. In a sense it is a role which I can only grow into, a Doctor is valued because of the standard of their work and that includes the ability to communicate it to others. It was nice to be in company where that was the assumed position of a speaker. There will have been people there who did not understand themselves in this way but they were likely to be the minority. Just as I was in the minority as someone who was not called to be a cleric. So yes it was good to be told that if there is a desire there is a way. I know there is the desire, it has exceptionally burnt strong and constant so far through my PhD. The big problem is that I haven't a clue of the way. One step at the time, and at present that is thesis writing. Then it will be getting the ideas out.
One thing that seems to be wrong is what theologians imagine modern biblical scholars do. There are indeed textual scholars who work on the minutiae of translation, but there is such a range now including the
Bible's relations to society or this on
Law in the bible. The tiny details they work with is no longer the sole methodology if it ever was. Any theologian who thinks it is, has not been listening! I would suggest that there is a much smaller gap between the more thematic Biblical scholarship and the Biblical theology than between Biblical theology and say philosophical theology. If the two aren't talking they darn well should be. The church needs the varied insights, let us not seek to denigrate others as if they are taking glory from us.
Then comes the big challenge, the fact is a Doctor of the Church is a tool for God, we are not there to serve our own purposes. God is free to use us and free to lay us aside. We cannot demand the church listens, there is nothing anywhere to say that it must. I will do my utmost to use my insight but I must at the same time be aware that the Church is free. Now that is where I am coming from. I sensed a desire for recognition and for the ability to have our status recognised. I enjoy it being recognised, I freely ready to admit that, it is heady stuff when that happens. However in the end we can only receive that, we cannot demand it.
Having written this I suspect that there are two themes, one is the relationship between the theology of the Academy and the teaching authority of the Church. These are not one and the same. Secondly the challenge to build collegiality and recognition across boundaries of subject and institution. Thus create a shared discourse that will enrich both the academy and the Church. However such a task can only be undertaken in a spirit of humility with a readiness to listen.
