Studying theology and method has never been morally difficult to me, but the person behind the method has haunted me in certain cases. Most recently, I was blindsided by the scandalous affair surrounding Barth’s legacy. This from one of the most Christocentric theologians I had ever read had struck a rather sour chord with me, leaving me to wonder: What makes a theologian’s words worth heeding? Are theology and methods analyzed in a vacuum, or does the type of life the person lived play into the equation? Oddly enough, in the spirit of both Barth and the Reformation at large, I think it’s a bit of a “both and” situation. Fortunately, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation seems to be an appropriate time to reflect on who we learn from, and how we appropriate that learning, and how we know things about God through broken teachers.
Paul rebuked Peter for not eating with the Gentiles, Origen ended up being denounced as a heretic, and Augustine believed that a non-metaphorical reading of Genesis was asinine. Calvin allowed for the death of Servetus and Luther was anti-Semitic. The Puritans participated in and approved of slavery. Barth had an extremely blatant and unrepentant affair. The Catholic church has pedophilia scandals; the Evangelical church has scandals pertaining to abuse of power and marital unfaithfulness.
From beginning to end, every theologian we have found ourselves putting stock in seems to have one fatal flaw or another. Naturally, for me at least, this shakes up our ability to trust the theology of these people. What do we take from Calvin, Luther, Barth, Puritans, fallen Evangelical pastors? If these people who devoted their lives to knowing and expounding the Scriptures could fall, what hope is there for us, the common folk? How can people do such heinous things while simultaneously having good theology and method?
The answer to this question is both an exhortation and a warning, a double-edged sword. Knowing good method is like having a good toolset for comprehending our God who is revealed in Scripture. Knowing good theology is having a constant reminder of who God is, especially when circumstances or deceivers would tempt us to think otherwise. But therein lies the issue: good theology is a reminder, but not necessarily always our first belief. Hence why in Evangelicalism we find a wide array of people from legalists to libertines. Most of these people would claim the five solas, but do not actually carry them out. If beliefs govern our actions and theology is also a subset of our beliefs, then why do we seemingly contradict our own beliefs via our actions? Because no matter how proper a belief, we’re still weak, fragile, easily deceived humans who could not be trusted to hold onto God ourselves, but are in fact kept by God himself despite our shortcomings. We can come to correct theology, even though we may not be able to grasp it as tightly as we might like. Thus, I think there’s much to still be learned from our tragically flawed theologians who, though they could not hold onto their theology consistently, did have helpful insight to who God is and how we should know and relate to him.
Fortunately for us, even their falls can teach us to rely on God to strengthen us in ways they might have been blinded to. Their failures have the potential to become our object lessons, and their falls can result in a sort of grace God has given to us in order to warn us of threats and temptations that exist, and that likewise creep at our doorstep. The cry of Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide, Sola Christus, Sola Gratia, and Sola Deo Gloria rang as sweetly in their ears as it does ours. In the depths of their sin, and the height of their theological works, they knew only of one place they could point to in the end to substantiate what they claimed and to denounce what they got wrong: Scripture itself would be our ultimate correction.
However tragic the fall of our flawed heroes, they would be pleased to know that in their failures they managed to persuade you and me to pick up the Scriptures and read for ourselves. They would be ecstatic that we see them, full of sin and not worthy to have their words taken as gospel, because all that would be left is the Word of God itself. Just as Jesus can use fishermen and tax collectors, people who were hot headed and cowardly, and people that failed him immensely to be the pillars of the Church, so Jesus can also produce helpful works to better understand him and point us back to him and his word.
In the spirit of the Reformation, be gracious with your past theologians, be fierce in your battle with sin, be diligent in your searching the Scriptures, and most of all, abide in Christ with every fiber of your being.
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