What do we do when those who have helped our theological development take a step in a direction that really concerns us?
As I write, there’s just been a bruhaha on X about John Mark Comer changing his mind away from penal substitutionary atonement. To be precise, though little of the storm has been, he expressed movement in that direction in an Instagram story. This isn’t wholly surprising, but Comer is the darling of contemporary big tent evangelicalism and beloved by many. Him indicating a theological opinion that is ‘outside of the camp’ in some fashion causes stirs. (Since I wrote this, he’s rowed it back a little, but not a lot).
Personally, Comer hasn’t been a huge influence on me, though I’d be positive about his work. I think we read many of the same books and clearly share a sense that habit and practice are important parts of the Christian life to be recovered by many evangelicals. He’s the biggest voice in western evangelicalism among those under 30 at the moment, so even if we haven’t been influenced by him many will feel they need to respond, but this post is about what we do ourselves.
Even if I haven’t been influenced by him, some of our similar interests lead me to ask the question: does my trajectory lead in this direction?
This is more pertinent with one of Comer’s sources: James K. A. Smith. If you know Smith’s work you’ll see his influence in my thinking, especially the idea of a ‘cultural liturgy’ and the ‘Christian social imaginary’ (which is Smith’s adaptation of a concept from Charles Taylor). His ideas are foundational to my academic work too. I want to hasten to add that my work has also been critical of Smith, though that’s much less evident in my blogging. I want to hasten to add that because Smith’s theological work has taken him off the deep end in the area of sexual ethics: he’s been for a couple of years now a proponent of homosexual marriage.
I think that’s an issue, and one that’s central enough to the gospel—which is fundamentally the story of a romance between Jesus and his bride, the Church, that marriage is given to be an imaginary of—that it leads me to question the foundation of his thought.
It also comes up when someone who hasn’t guided your intellectual development but has your ministry or who has pastored you personally either falls through moral failure or changes their mind to a position outside of the mainstream of orthodoxy. The Pastor who nurtured and recognised my own call to ministry, who taught me to preach, who formed me towards eldership and first appointed me to that office, fell from ministry through a series of moral and leadership failures. Initially I rejected his teaching and formation, which I think is natural, but much of it was good.
Here’s how I think you should respond when those who’ve been guides to you fall in one way or another: you question the foundation.
I’ve had to reexplore James K. A. Smith’s thought and his influence on me to see where the foundation is faulty. As it happens, my major criticism of him is where I think the problem lies: for Smith the Christian social imaginary comes from practice and doctrine, so one can correct the other in either direction. It isn’t clear that practice or doctrine can necessarily be wrong. I argue that the imaginary is formed by practice and doctrine, with both corrected by Scripture; there is a true story, a true imaginary, that our worship is supposed to embody. Where it doesn’t, we should correct it, not change the story.
I’ve had to reexplore what I was taught by that Pastor and question the foundations. The challenge has been that the good was laced through with the bad. Domination and control were key parts of his toolkit, and yet his direct (and often unkind) challenges to me personally were used by the Lord to shape and grow me. Dropping what’s bad while keeping what’s good is much harder when they all seem intertwined. I’m still figuring this out.
Once we’ve reexplored the foundations, we need to take one other step: assume what was good came from the Lord.
This is more important in those who have pastored us than those whose books have taught us, but it applies in both directions. The good formation that God did in my life was not because that Pastor was harsh, its because the good Shepherd cut through the morass to say ‘that part is true’ and used it to shape me towards him. The good in theology from flawed thinking, if true, is good because it finds its source in God. All good things come from God.
Of course, we’re all flawed; even guides that don’t ‘fall,’ if that’s even a fair term to use for everyone I’ve mentioned, may have given us faulty foundations laced with their own sin. Those who’ve pastored us well will still have made significant mistakes due to their own sin. My own theological system, my own theological method, and my own pastoral work are all laced through with my own sin. There will be faults in them.
If I knew where they were, I’d change them. They will still be there.
Examine my foundation. Question what I write. Think and test it against Scripture.
When our guides fall, remember this: Yahweh will guide you continually (Isaiah 58.11).
Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash
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