A Living Theology
What I learned attending my first academic conference
Today, I’m sharing a few thoughts on my experience attending the Society of Pentecostal Studies conference last month, so it may be slightly different than normal.
This was my first time attending an academic conference of any kind - and I was presenting! (More on that another time).
At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, in a small way, joining this gathering was, to me, something akin to Bonhoeffer’s discovery of a “cloud of witnesses” during his year in New York City. The warm welcome and charitable feedback offered throughout the conference helped me find an intellectual home of sorts.
There are many things I could say about this wonderful experience, but today, I want to focus on four connected observations about this gathering of scholars, studying and living out the Pentecostal/charismatic tradition.
1. The “Pastor-Theologian” is alive and well in Pentecostal theology
What Gramsci called the “organic intellectual,” David Fitch has said needs to be the posture of pastors/theologians for the future. While many institutions are finding it hard to adapt to new questions as the tectonic plates of our culture radically shift, the organic intellectual can think through the complex issues of our day without providing quick and easy answers. They are thoughtful, robust, theologically and culturally formed answers that lead into practice.
Something in the mold of Bonhoeffer as Pastor-Theologian: Pastors rooted in their contexts, but also deeply engaged in the cultural and theological questions of our day.
Immediately I noticed how many incredible scholars at SPS were also pastoring or serving in some capacity in their local churches. When I commented on this observation many responded with, “Oh yes, this is normal.”
This is consistent with Pentecostal/Charismatic theology which is always attuned to the embodied practice of the Church that is led by the Spirit. The “wind” of God is so unpredictable and sudden that a Pentecostal pastor-theologian is pre-disposed to pay attention to sudden shifts and wonder what God is doing and how God is leading the church in the world.
I met so many who are asking these questions as they emerge in real time from amongst their people and I found it so encouraging.
2. Pentecostal theology is practical theology
That Pentecostal theology is pre-disposed to forming pastor-theologians leads quickly to a saying I heard repeated often over those three days: “All Pentecostal Theology is Practical Theology.”
As I understand it, Practical Theology as a theological discipline seeks to take more philosophical theological categories and apply them in practice or see what kind of data can be collected in real-time in local church communities. Practical theologians wonder, “If this theological possibility is true, how might we see this play out in our local congregation.” As you can probably tell, this approach allows for tremendous connections between pastoral and theological work.
Not only does the theological work offer new opportunities for pastoral ministry, the pastoral work informs the theological reflection creating a reflexive relationship between the two. This helps avoid ivory towers and disembodied theologies that have often plagued the Western Church.
3. Pneumatology Is Crucial to Embodied Theology
Speaking of disembodied theology…we cannot have good pneumatology without having embodied theology!
Pneumatology, the theology of the Holy Spirit, studies the Spirit’s work in the world and the Church and is intimately connected to embodied (lived out) theology.
Consider the role of the Spirit in many places in Scripture:
The Spirit hovers over the darkness of the waters (Gen 1:2)
The sustaining “breath,” God’s Spirit (ruach in Hebrew for breath, wind), will not stay with humans indefinitely and limits their lifespan. (Gen 6:3)
The Spirit fills Bezalel to be a skilled artisan (Ex 35:31)
The Spirit allows the elders of Israel to speak prophetically (Num 11:25)
The Spirit comes and goes from Saul making him a different person (1 Sam)
Job declares the Spirit of God has made him (Job 33:4)
The Spirit physically transported Ezekiel (Ez 43:5)
The outpouring to the Spirit will cause all people young, old, women, and men to dream and see visions (Joel 2:28-29)
The Spirit came upon Mary so she could become pregnant (Luke 2)
The Spirit enables the first disciples of Jesus to speak in the languages of others around them and to give to each other as they had need (Acts 2)
The Spirit led them to bold preaching and declaration (Acts 4)
I could go on but you get the idea. Throughout Scripture, the Spirit is constantly moving upon physical, embodied people in space and time. In creation, in people, in cultures.
Jesus himself, the incarnated Word of God proclaimed, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. The Spirit was upon Jesus to do very tangible things like give poor people good news, proclaim captives will be released and blind people will see (Luke 4:18).
The scriptures do not have a Westernized vision of the world, where we keep theology separate from everyday life. Or spirituality separate from our everyday activity in the world. Rather, the Scriptures demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is upon us, making us see, giving us skills to do with our hands, and helping us speak prophetically or in other languages.
Our experience of the Spirit’s work in the world is through our bodies, not despite them.
What I witnessed in many presentations and conversations was a deep conviction among these scholars that the Pentecost event does not lead to a “heavenly-minded-no-earthly-good” kind of thinking, but rather, a deeply embodied way of thinking and being.
4. Theology Must Make Us Sing
The climax of our theological work over those three days was embodied in times of corporate worship, prayer, and hearing the scripture as women and men from many languages, ethnicities, cultures, and continents were unified together before the throne of God.
That “breath” (ruach/pneuma) should pass over our vocal cords offering an utterance of praise in worship in our many tongues is the heart of embodied pneumatology!
As one of my teachers would often say, “Theology should make you sing.”
Indeed, the theological conversations taking place over those three days demanded that we sing. The Spirit that we were speaking of should naturally cause us to sing to the God who is renewing all things. (It is, of course, the Spirit and the Bride together at the end of Revelation crying out, “Come!”)
Sadly, deep theological thinking is sometimes considered tedious and sleep-inducing. That might be understandable if it was nothing more than an intense intellectual exercise. But that is not theology.
Theology, Christian theology, is confessional. It names the reality that God has filled us with the Holy Spirit through Jesus the God-Man.
That sentence fills me with awe, terror, and glee all at the same time. That we live in a world that God has made and wants to inhabit with us is a cause for celebration and joy as we work out how to live well in this world.
It is not tedious, it makes us sing!
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Love this!
Thanks for sharing your reflections here, they are encouraging to me. I particularly enjoyed the pastor-theologian emphasis and this theology expressed in worship. Yes, yes, and yes!