At the recent meeting of the Baptist World Alliance I had a friendly exchange with an interlocutor after presenting a paper. In my response I summoned an old term of uncertain but perhaps Irish origin, “malarkey,” which means foolish or nonsense, to describe what I believe is a grave heresy in trinitarian thinking. My comments created a bit of a stir, so, being a theologian and educator, I feel compelled to go further in explaining its significance.
The beauty of trinitarian theology is that it describes the relational God who dwells eternally in the richness of community, pouring out life to construct identity. The generativity, hospitality, and diversity of the Triune God offers a model for human community. To speak of one member of the Trinity being eternally subordinated and thereby a model for the subordination of women in marriage is heretical, and I called it theological malarkey. Equality is the hallmark of the dynamic movement in the divine life, as centuries of theological reflection have confessed.
We all know that Christian faith is suffering a credibility problem in many places, beginning here in the United States, for the willingness of white evangelical Christians to be co-opted by a demagogic racist. President Donald Trump’s recent diatribe toward congressional women of color, telling them to “go back where they came from” is being excused by his enablers as staunch leadership for the good of the country – and for Israel. That this sector of Christianity will put up with anything that comes out of this president’s mouth in order to secure the Supreme Court conservative majority for their signature issue is deeply troubling. They defend his verbal incontinence as serving a higher purpose, which is theological malarkey.
“Any church that is unwilling to risk its resources – letting some things die – in order to give itself to being the presence of Christ in its context is captive to theological malarkey.”
While at the BWA I observed a brochure that stated the nations in which Christians most likely would be vulnerable to mass killings by their governments. I winced when I saw it; putting this information in print only further jeopardizes this demographic and draws attention to a situation Baptist Christians in North America can do little about. If such information is generated only to make the privileged feel righteous by lamenting this situation, then it is theological malarkey. I remember with what care Christian leaders in Myanmar speak about their government; it is unwise to do otherwise.
One of the beautiful things about the BWA is the decentering of North American hegemony as voices of the global south and east articulate their vision for the church. In an epoch when the awakening to the burden of colonialism continues, it matters that these voices shape the narratives of what it means to be Baptist around the world and that those usually presuming to speak for all listen quietly, or else we protract xenophobic theological malarkey.
Last December, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, published an extensive study of its founders and learned more deeply of the slave-holding traditions that were ingredient to its early history. When challenged to make reparations by donating a tithe of its substantial endowment to Simmons College of Kentucky, a historically black institution in the same city, the administration said it could not do that because Simmons is not officially related to the Southern Baptist Convention and does not teach in accord with its tenets. Missing a huge opportunity to signal “fruits worthy of repentance,” the seminary will cling to its resources while its sister school struggles. The nit-picking argument of Southern Seminary is theological malarkey.
As churches face hard decisions about properties and personnel, often self-preservation precludes mission. As congregations we need to give ourselves to the kind of passionate reading of Scripture John Webster describes “as an instance of the fundamental pattern of all Christian existence, which is dying and rising with Jesus Christ through the purging and quickening power of the Holy Spirit.” To read Scripture this way as guidance for congregational decisions is “to be slain and made alive.” Any church that is unwilling to risk its resources – letting some things die – in order to give itself to being the presence of Christ in its context is captive to theological malarkey.
To live as if resurrection is only the story of Jesus and not of his larger body is to live a faithless existence. The resurrection renews the whole world, as the old Roman liturgy puts it. The same mighty power that raised Jesus from the dead is igniting authentic Christian witness. As Richard Hays writes, “The Resurrection purges the death-bound illusions that previously held us captive and sets us free to perceive the real world of God’s life-giving resurrection power.” When we wonder if there is enough spiritual power to live as faithful disciples of Jesus, we have succumbed to theological malarkey.
I am on a mission to rid the world of theological malarkey. Will you join me?