By Starlette McNeill
This week, I presented on the topic “The Double-Minded Church: Spiritual Formation and the Impractical Theology of Race” at ChurchWorks, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship conference for ministers of education and spiritual formation. I know. The title is a mouthful, and though it may take longer to say, it will take even longer to think about because it is also a mind-full. It’s hard to get our heads around race and God.
Still, we gathered to put our heads together, to bow in prayer, to listen and think through our theology and why it matters when it comes to race and spiritual formation, children and youth ministry, adult education, pastoral ministry and church starts. Persons gathered at the First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga., to rest and reconnect with friends, to reassess and remember their call to ministry. It was a time of discernment in order to reignite our passion for theology, to listen for direction in order to stop going through the motions of ministry, to heed the warning to slow down less we be crushed to spiritual death by the machinery of ministry and its demand for more and more fun and exciting programs.
Dr. Andrew Root, an associate professor at Luther Seminary, the author of several books to include Christopraxis: A Practical Theology of the Cross and the featured speaker, challenged us to wrestle with God, to get in the ring with the heavyweight champion questions of our ministry and world and to go a few rounds. He was our boxing coach, yelling at us from the corner to get back in there, to swing, to “bob and weave,” to stay on our feet, to keep fighting. But, he did it with Powerpoint slides and stories, lots of movie references and comically irreverent commentary, scriptures and prayers. He then asked us to quiet our minds, to listen and confess deeply about our theological ways.
And we did it again and again because the match was not over; we had simply ended a round. Ding. Ding. It was time for more questions.
Questions. That’s not a word that I was raised to believe in. There was no faith in questions. I was taught not to ask them of adults or God, to simply do as I was told and because “the Bible tells me so.” Consequently, questions were viewed as a sign of deafness and disrespect as “faith comes by hearing” (Rom. 10.17). Maybe you had the same teacher.
For many believers and nonbelievers (who chose not to believe because they could not ask questions), the Church is often seen as a place that is adverse to them, allergic to inquiry. Right after baptism, we are seemingly expected to be expert believers. No questions asked.
Still, I have heard my share of stories from those who were given the troublemaker treatment or asked to be quiet because they asked “too many” questions. “Shhh. Please keep your questions down.” I guess that there is an understood limit. You only get two. After that, you are a heathen.
These teachers seemed to be asking, “Why can’t you just accept the answer? Why can’t you just believe?” But, those are questions too. So, they can ask questions of you but you cannot ask them of God? And why do our questions imply doubt? Why can’t they suggest interest and investment in our faith?
Were they saying that we should not think about our theology, that we should think that God is good but not ask why the world can be such a bad place? Were they suggesting that God’s commands or callings are unquestionable, that God is certain so we should know, that because we believe we should be beyond the shadow of doubt, that there is no place for questions in Sunday school or Bible study? That we should easily and simply sign on the dotted line before understanding what we are agreeing to? I know. More questions.
Questions in many churches are treated as the opposite of faith. Raising a question in a business meeting could be dangerous. Put your hand down less you draw it back withered and we need a miracle not a motion. Though we are called to search and seek and knock, we often don’t find what we are looking for because the door of knowledge is closed on Sundays.
However, I was reminded this week of the importance of the unknown, the place and work of mystery in the life of the believer. I was reminded that we lose more when we hold tightly to our key to knowledge and that questions are evidence of wrestling, proof that God is present with us. And yes, I understand that asking questions means that we must admit that we don’t know it all though we serve the God who knows it all. Maybe that’s what needs to be pinned down, counted out. Perhaps, we need to lose our pride and pretentiousness. Drop the act that we have it all together and all figured out.
I think that our renewal comes not in the lowering of our theological expectations but through serving the Lord with our minds by raising the questions. I believe that our questions must grow up or we will remain an immature Church. They must move beyond the dependency of infancy, the awkwardness and uncertainty of puberty toward the accountability and responsibility of theological adulthood. Our questions must be allowed to develop and change or the Body of Christ will remain childish, pointing figures and placing blame instead of raising our hands, getting in the ring and double-teaming the questions.