Yes, my master's thesis was on getting seminary-level methodologies into the congregational Bible study. It was titled "Moving Out the Tent Pegs: Enlarging the Parish Bible Study with Seminary Concepts." It was about my long, lonely battle to make lay people aware of how much better, more inspiriting, more encouraging, more enlivening, and more abundant their readings of the Bible could be, if they would just make use of the fruits of Academic Biblical Scholarship! (Actually I am not quite so lonely any more, because I am now on an Adult Education Team at my church--Our Saviour's Lutheran--that gets it.)
When I was working on my thesis, people would ask me about it such a way as to make me think they were hoping I would discover whose "fault" it was that historical-literary critical methodologies weren't making it into the parish. Pastors were hoping I would discover it was the fault of seminary professors, seminary professors were hoping I would discover it was the fault of pastors. Lay people were hoping I would discover it was the fault of both pastors and seminary professors.
My answer, as outlined in my thesis, was that it was no one's "fault", at least at the historical moment in which I was writing my thesis. Previously, the resources, relationships, genres, and communication systems needed to import these methods into the parish were lacking. Now, however, they are widely available. Academic Biblical Scholarship is everywhere we look. It's on our TVs, DVRs, laptops, tablets, phones, Kindles, and bedside tables. For pity's sakes, Walter Brueggemann and Adam Hamilton are cranking out two books a year!
So now, if these methods do not make it into the parish, it is clear whose "fault" it is: it is the fault of lay people. There. I said it.
Lay people are now at least 50 year behind the Academy in terms of learned and Gospel-filled Bible study. They have to get on it, right now.
My fervent dream for all you MDivs is that when you go to be interviewed for a position as a professional Christian, the people interviewing you will question you closely as to your mastery of the good old classic and also the very latest and most currently fashionable Bible study techniques. ("What's this 'performance criticism' we're hearing about these days?") And if you get the job, and you preach on a text without situating it in its historic context, they will look at you funny. ("Don't you think that was a little bit supersessionist?") And if you offer a Bible study that neglects to take into account the language in which the text was originally written, they will complain. ("Are we supposed to believe that the word 'redeemer' always means exactly the same thing to everyone?")
Do I think this will happen? No, I don't.
But I pray that it may.
These people are pillars of our church. And they know what Q is.
Wow, I love your passion about this subject, that is great! And, I love how you want the next generation of ministers to be able to bridge the 50 year gap you speak about. Since for a little while longer I fit the definition of "lay person" I have a couple of questions. One thing I notice is that all of the people in your picture look not to be of childbearing age or younger (no offense). And, this is a resounding theme in church's across the nation as 80% are in decline and only 5% seem to be experiencing any kind of growth. So, my question is, what do you think the church, or a representative of the church, can do differently to attract the missing generations of our church's to engage with the Bible?
ReplyDeleteI do have a few people of "childbearing age" who attend my studies--they don't happen to appear in this particular picture--but it is true that most of us are at the grandparent stage. However, when I got into all this, I was a youth worker and used seminary-level methodologies in bible studies for high school students. I guess I would turn your question around: what did we in the church do to drive that missing generation away? Is it possible that they saw our lack of commitment to using our whole mind and heart to read the book we call "the Word of God", as a sign that we don't really care as much as we claim?
ReplyDeleteOne of the thing I like about being in full time ministry (and part time seminary) is being able to apply what I am learning. Several years ago I was leading a Pub Theology for a group of college undergrads (21 and older). I threw out the comment, "sounds like embedded theology" to which one of them said "what is that? we don't want that!!!" We promptly made a list of topics to work through during the rest of the year in which I could impart what I was learning in my seminary classes during our 90 minutes together each week. I found that time together to be deeply enriching for all involved. I a proud to say that many of those folks have not graduated and are driving their pastors crazy or making their pastors happy by asking questions like, "what atonement theory most resonates with you?" or "what do you think the book of Job is trying to tell us as one of the wisdom literatures?" I hope we can continue to work toward bringing lay persons into biblical scholarship.
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