On being a theological mutt...

...and liking it.

I recently decided to move my library back home. It’s the fourth time I’ve moved my ever-growing, ever-evolving library, and the older I get the less enjoyable I find the experience.

The books in a pastor’s (and presumably a scholar’s) library provides something akin to a geological profile. Each intellectual era has its representatives. In my library, the oldest geological layer is the C.S. Lewis layer. Above that is the Wayne Grudem, John Piper, Michael Horton layer. Then Martin Luther. Then the first layer of Karl Barth. Then there’s the biblical scholarship layer, the Eugene Peterson and Henri Nouwen layer, the first Pentecostal scholarship layer, the existentialist layer, the dispensational layer (appearing oddly late compared to other pastors’ theo-geological profiles), and so on. Barth provides one or two more layers, as do other topics and authors. There are one-off books and authors spread throughout, and some of the layers intertwine. Though arranged alphabetically and by topic on my shelves, to me the geological layers are obvious. There’s a history here. The books I have sold or given away are as present, in my mind, as the books that remain. My shelves represent the history of my mind, soul, and ministry.

When I began this substack a month or so ago, I was giving-in to the notion of needing to legitimize one’s theological or ecclesiastical tradition. In our age of uncertainty and constant change, many Christians are looking to the older traditions for stability and guidance. This means evangelicals becoming Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. It means nondenominational Christians becoming Anglican, Lutheran, or even Reformed (though this last move was trendier a decade or two ago than it is now). Within this context, I wanted to demonstrate the historical legitimacy of the Pentecostal tradition, and of Baptistic or “Finished Work” Pentecostalism in particular (the stream of which the Assemblies of God USA is the flagship denomination, historically speaking). But by the grace of God, the erroneous nature of this enterprise became obvious to me rather quickly.

The deeper one delves into the various and sundry Christian traditions, the more one sees how the continuity and univocality many desire today is largely a myth. The church fathers are not nearly so in lockstep as many Catholic and Orthodox apologists (or paleo-orthodox scholars like Thomas Oden) would lead one to believe. Medieval Christianity is all over the place. Official Roman Catholic doctrine in many ways post-dates the Protestant Reformation. The ecclesiastical vision of Eastern Orthodoxy has more to do with the Byzantine Empire than the apostles. The differences among the first generation of Reformers can essentially be summed up with the question, “How much of Roman Catholic Christianity do we need to change? Some, a little, most, or all?” And I could go on…

Jesus tells his disciples, “Blessed are you who are poor” (Luke 6:20) and in Matthew’s version, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3). Whatever else one wants to make of these words, clearly it includes the idea that God’s sympathies are toward the have-nots. Evangelicalism has found its cultural comeuppance because it believed for so long that it had. How often did we boast against the “dead religion” of these other traditions? How often did we say that we had the Bible and they did not? “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains” (John 9:41). But the irony is that, in this cultural moment, the ancient and venerable traditions to which people are turning are doing the same thing we evangelicals did. They are patting their chests and saying, “Yes, we have the truth.” A generation or two will be glad they’ve found a home. But judgment begins at the household of God…

As I look around at the books on my shelves and see what a mutt I really am (spiritually, theologically, ecclesiastically, etc.), the more I realize that my only justification can be Jesus himself. My church is not legitimate, but we are legitimate in him. My theology is ever-changing, but its constant and joyful bedrock is him. As Karl Barth once wrote, to be Protestant is to be suspended midair—nothing holding us up from beneath, and nothing suspending us by a string from above. We hang in midair, held up by nothing but the gospel itself.

The glory of being Protestant is that we are poor. The glory of being Pentecostal is that we are poor. The glory of being Christian is that we are poor.

“Blessed are you who are poor…”