By Molly T. Marshall
I probably should have done this before my third column, but I am delighted that Associated Baptist Press has invited me to write regularly, especially since they want me to engage the craft of thinking theologically in accessible ways.
This means that I lay aside the arcane language of the theological schoolmarm (if possible) to practice theology with readers. Hopefully, this exercise will inspire, inform and engage in constructive ways.
Doctors and lawyers have long endured the jibe about “practicing” medicine and law. I remember people asking my physician husband: “Haven’t you got that figured out yet? Why are you still practicing?”
Practicing involves humility. It is impossible to know all the nuances of a particular disease in a particular patient in a particular medical ecosystem, so the physician must practice with emerging insight.
Attorneys cannot follow clear legal precedents when challenges arise that have never before been addressed. They must summon a new constellation of information to guide present and future decisions.
So it is with theology. We must learn to practice our faith.
Over the past decade and a half, a new approach to spiritual formation for individuals and communities has emerged. Led by Craig Dykstra and Dorothy Bass, scholar-practitioners began to name practices ordinary Christians might pursue to deepen their relationship with God and others.
The winsomeness of this approach is that it invites concrete behaviors that form persons after the likeness of the Triune God. It is also focused and thereby more manageable. If extending forgiveness seems too arduous, then focus on other acts of healing. If discernment eludes us, learning to speak an authentic “yes” or “no” may kindle imagination of a new pathway.
Practices such as Sabbath-keeping, hospitality, honoring the body, testimony and singing, to mention only a few, can shape distinctly Christian identity. In a time when confessional words are more suspect, transformed living can bear compelling witness.
Practicing theology is more than learning the outline of the major doctrines, the confessional heritage of the church or even the range of heresies. Rather, it is recognizing how beliefs arise from specific practices. And theology has to do with real life, not abstractions.
For example, when we honor the body — tending an infant or an elder — we are acknowledging the gift of vulnerable, graced flesh granted by our Maker. This moves us to think about Word made flesh — as the Incarnate One, God shared our mode of being in the world.
When we keep Sabbath, we recognize that the rhythms of work and rest are inscribed into creation. We also consider the rhythms of the divine life and how time itself finds its fulfillment in Sabbath.
When we worship, we confess that God alone deserves the fullest outpouring of self. God’s gift of self precedes and makes our own self-giving. We recognize that the meaning of our lives is grounded in the Eternal Thou who has poured out grace upon grace through the Son and the Spirit.
Practicing hospitality points us to the very heart of our faith — God’s own radical hospitality in welcoming sinful strangers home. Jesus’ ministry was all about compassionate inclusion, transgressing old boundaries between “clean” and “unclean.” When we de-center ourselves to create space for “others,” we share with God the task of forming the beloved community.
When we accompany the dying with faithful presence, we are reliable signs of God’s caring. We embody the reality “that nothing shall separate us from the love of God; neither life nor death.” When we can journey no longer with them, we entrust them to God’s safekeeping, thereby confessing our belief in the resurrection and the life.
Moving theology out of musty tomes into the lived patterns of vibrant Christian communities tests our beliefs and deepens our faith. And yes, it takes practice.