Westminster and Writing for the Church

Last updated on: November 2, 2006 at 2:30 am by Scot McKnight

Westminster and Writing for the Church 2006-11-02T02:30:36-06:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I must confess something: I love seminaries. Other than the obvious — teaching and training pastors and missionaries and evangelists and the like — what I like most is the rhetorical level. Using theological words brings me pleasure, the kind of pleasure an artist feels when he or she can say to a fellow artist, “The perspective evoked so-and-so but the color conflicted with both perspective and tone.” And therein lies a problem that may have come home to me more than anything else last weekend at Westminster.

When I left TEDS to teach at NPU, and I promise I’ll blog on why I did that someday, I knew that teaching college students would change my rhetoric — for the good. Back to my first observation: I love the rhetorical level of seminaryspeak. Now back to my point: that rhetorical level is not for the local church nor for lay folk. More professors need to learn to write for lay people.
I want to reach the church; theologyspeak won’t get us there.
What I like most about teaching college students, particularly first year college students, is what it has done to me as a communicator. I’ve learned to drop the theological rhetoric — “eschatological presence” — and learned to relate in studentspeak — “God is with us now.” The difference is enormous, and I fear seminaries intoxicate students with the pleasure of theological rhetoric and it takes a good long while to unlearn that stuff in order to speak to lay folk.
I made a commitment about 15 years ago to learn to speak to lay people, and in a way that “worked.” I am persuaded that the essential philosophy of seminary professors doesn’t work — to wit (to use professorspeak), “We’ll teach pastors and the pastors will pass on our ideas to the layfolks.” (Now I’m not criticizing WTS profs; no, I’m criticizing nearly all seminary profs.)
The simple facts are these: lay folks aren’t learning what seminary professors are teaching their students-who-have-become-our-pastors, at least not as effectively as seminary professors sometimes think. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again — hoping I’ve got some new readers or some who skipped previous posts: there was a day when seminary professors and Christian college professors wrote books for layfolks, and layfolks read seminary and college professors. At that time, very few pastors wrote books — they preached and pastored.
Times have changed. Seminary and college professors are intoxicated with their rhetorics and they have learned the game, the fun game, of writing for their peers. So, they now write learned monographs — and I’ve got a little satchel of such books myself. A Light among the Gentiles and Jesus and His Death. All of this proves that we — evangelicals — have fulfilled Carl Henry’s dream or Mark Noll’s warning — that we make a contribution to culture, to theory, to education, and to intellectual history. I believe in such work.
But, not at the expense of the church. And that’s exactly what has happened. (I happened to write the other day to a seminary president about this, a person I’ve never met but whom I’ve read, and he said, “Let’s talk.”)
Here’s the truth: people have asked me if I’ll lose my reputation as an academic if I write for lay people; and I’ve been told not to write on a blog (because that is non-academic). My response has been the same: what I do, I hope, is for the glory of God and for God’s people. I love academic theology, but the academic theology that is truly designed to do what it can do better end up in the Church.
Back to the observation: theological rhetoric is intoxicating, but our task is to communicate the gospel to our world in such a way that it “sings and stings.”
And the time is now for seminary professors and college professors to re-learn what our task is all about. We might teach seminarians and students at advanced levels, but the fundamental goal of all Bible knowledge is to communicate that truth to ourselves and to others so that we can live it out. Not just so that we can communicate within the guild and to fellow pastors, but so we can talk to Emily Johnson and Fyodor Czechin about their issues so they can learn to live as Christians today.
How do we learn to do this? I will tell you what has happened to me. This process began with a New Vision for Israel and Turning to Jesus. Neither comes close to what I was aiming at: both are too dense, too abstract, and too arcane. But I tried.
Then came Jesus Creed. My goal was to write a book about Jesus so that average Christians could grasp what Jesus was like and what he was teaching in his world, but in such a way, too, that the book could help them live Christianly in our world today.
What helped me the most was reading writers who have learned to communicate to the average person — and you can look at sales levels to see who is reaching normal people. Arcane books don’t sell; readable books do.
Here are some names, and I don’t give a rip what you think of their ideas, of those who have figured it out: John Ortberg, Anne Lamott, Richard Foster, Lynn Hybels, Phillip Yancey, Beth Moore, Brian McLaren, et al.. If you spend your time reading academic monographs, you’ll learn to speak and write like that rhetoric. So, give yourself a constant exposure to good writers — like EB White or Joseph Epstein.
Learn your theology; teach your theology; but learn to teach that theology to the average person — the person who might not give a rip about theology — in such a way that it sinks home.
It is said, though I have no idea if it is true, that William Barclay’s first job — after his PhD — was to a coal-mining community where there was a low percentage of readers. So, he learned to talk to them and preach for them, and that is why dear old Barclay’s books sit on lots of pastors shelves — not because they like everything he says but because he can bring it home. NT Wright is one of the few today who does this well. He’s the natural successor to Barclay’s Study Bible.
One of the reasons crowds flocked to Jesus was because they could understand his clear teachings and his pleasurable, world-spinning, and power-upending parables. Learn from him how to communicate.

Theology

Writing & Blogging

Previous Post

November 2, 2006

Guess who came to our home this week?

Next Post

November 3, 2006 Getting started young

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Where does the Bible say, "do to others as you would have them do to you"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Luke Leviticus Revelation Judges