Ben Myers has a post today over on Faith & Theology concerning the relationship of ‘research theology’ as practiced in the academic setting and the popular theology that occurs in the actual ecclesial setting of the church.  His comments and the posts that they link to are well worth reading and I will not bear simply repeating them.

However it occurs, I see a deep problem in the disconnect between academic theology and the life of the Church.  The insights and ideas of professional theologians seem to be by and large utterly ignored by the vast majority of Christians and I am saddened by the ignorance that I have seen even in the clergy.  Yet oftentimes the subject matter of theology bears little insight on the interests and cares of the person in the pew and this is not helpful either.

There was a move associated with the Liberation Theology movement to focus on ‘Theopraxis’ (that is, right practice) rather than ‘Theology’ (that is, right thought).  However, the two are not alternatives but are rather dialectically interconnected.  One cannot have right practice apart from an understanding of the Gospel and one cannot fully understand the Gospel apart from living it.

I found the following quote the book ‘The Gospel According to Peanuts.’ Linus is speaking to his older sister Lucy and says:

Charlie Brown says that brothers and sisters can learn to get along. He says they can get along the way mature adults can get along. And he says that adults can get along the way nations get along.

At this point the analogy breaks down.

The failure of humanity to ‘get along’ ascends along the axis of size and maturity and resources.  Yet maybe the principle works in reverse as well and nations and adults must learn to get along the way children do.

If you have not read ‘The Gospel According to Peanuts’ I highly recommend it as a remarkably sophisticated and insightful exploration of theology via the Peanuts universe.  I have included a link to it in my Amazon Store.

(Image by ~MVI~ via Flickr)

I am repeatedly impressed by the posts over on to ‘the church and postmodern culture: conversation’, and the recent post ‘a phenomenology of impossible prayers’ particularly caught my attention.  The author’s focus is primarily on ‘crisis prayers’ – the crying out in situations of utter desperation and helplessness and how they express the general condition that humanity finds itself in with relation to God, who “enters philosophy in defiance of the conditions of experience.” Karl Barth described this God as ‘totally other’ to capture this idea.  God’s ‘otherness’ is no where so well captured as in the period of crisis where we are powerless to do anything and find God in a position to do anything.

The author meditates on on the formative aspects of prayer, namely those ways that prayer in crisis changes us.  It causes us to change our perspective on the world (to see it from God’s perspective where crisis is incessant) and to understand better the deeper streams of pain and angst that flow throughout cosmic history (most notably the pain of sin in the world).

I, however, wish to make a point along these lines that is in direct dialectical tension with the author’s meditation, namely, that the very impossibility of a God who nevertheless yet exists, should condition us to pray for and in the realm of impossibility.  If God’s love and power come piercing down into a human reality whose perspective would never have lifted to see the meta-reality of God, then our response to God should be similarly audacious.  What does it gain us in our walk with Christ to limit how much we ask of Him?

By this sentiment, I mean more than simply that we ought to pray for the impossible and highly improbable.  It is partly founded upon a sense that relationship with God, like any other true relationship, must be founded upon honesty and when we fail to be honest with God even in what we want of Him (for in reality, we usually do want that impossible thing or even that only he can bring about).  By faith we ask audaciously, letting the Spirit condition us and grow us to understand how to ask better and what God’s response tells us about his character. (An early lesson along these lines seems to be that God has profound respect for the laws of the universe that he has laid down).

The greatest growth that I have observed in audacious prayer, is realizing how small even my audacity is.  I may pray for the unlikely recovery of a friend in an automobile accident, but what is life in Christianity? Certainly it is far more than a functioning body.  It is a fullness of being as fulfilling the original intent in creation to commune through love with both man and God.  I might pray for a really great job, but again, the need for a fullness of life that underlies that desire for a good job is ultimately what for which I should be praying.  In all ways, we must raise our countenance as we seek to understand God’s ability to do more than we possibly could imagine.