Sing praise with the mind: reflections of a Baptist theologian-in-residence: what would it be like to be a theologian-in-residence in a local Baptist Church?

Between August 1997 and May 1998, I had that privilege. I served as part-time "theologian-in-residence" at the-First Baptist Church of Memphis, Tennessee. This congregation is richly blessed with a desire to ponder the relationship between their faith and the contemporary world in which they live. The church building is located in the historic midtown section of the city. (1)

While I was already engaged as a full-time professor of religion and literature at nearby Rhodes College, a selective liberal arts institution associated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a position I had held since August 1993, I was invited and encouraged to spend around twenty hours per week helping church members to think theologically. (2)

Worked out with the able assistance of Kenneth A. Corr, First's senior pastor, my objective was to stimulate the members of the church to think about what it means to be the Body of Christ in their area, namely, at the corner of Poplar Avenue and East Parkway, midtown Memphis, and to accomplish this task in a pastorally sensitive and intellectually satisfying manner.

The purpose of this essay to provide an account of my work with this congregation, to document and comment on the many and diverse ways in which we "did theology" together, and, in so doing, to offer some modest thoughts on the nature and future of theology in the local Baptist church.

Theological Formation: Becoming Filled with God's Wisdom

I want to begin these reflections by suggesting, as I did to FBC Memphis, that a church theologian-in-residence assists others in the ongoing task of "practicing the presence of God." Thus, while a senior pastor or senior minister helps others to practice spiritual formation, to seek after God with the heart, the theologian-in-residence instructs others to seek after God with the mind, to commit themselves to the discipline of theological formation.

Now, my opening remarks prompt an initial question: How do I define "theological formation"? At the outset of my tour of duty at FBC Memphis, and much to my chagrin, I found I was unable to give an answer to this question. The reason for this ignorance is obvious enough: I was trained as an academic, as a scholar, and not as a church theologian. Working as a professor of religion and literature, I feel comfortable making demands of my students, demands to be critical of their subject matter, while paying little or no attention to matters of faith. As most academics know, sometimes students' faith can impede their intellectual progress.

To help students understand that college religion class is not "advanced Sunday school," I begin each semester by greeting new classes with a clarion call for the suspension of belief. I ask students to "bracket off" their religious concerns, if they possess any, and some don't, and then I enjoin them to look at religion in a scholarly (i.e., detailed and dispassionate) manner. This pedagogy does not always register with my students; indeed, many of them want to weld faith and scholarship, not separate them, and so more than a few students finish my course(s) with a sense of acute discomfort. Church theologians do not work like academic theologians. Instead of calling for the suspension of belief, they must be sensitive to their congregation's understanding of faith.

As one might expect, then, it is not at all easy to wear both hats, to be both a full-time academic theologian and a part-time church theologian, and so, at least in the first few weeks of my ministry at FBC Memphis, I undertook an in-depth study of my congregation.

This initial examination of the church, including both its history and its established values, helped me discover what kind of theologian its members needed me to be; "reading" the "lived ecclesiology" of the church provided me with some clear and unambiguous ideas regarding the nature and task of theological formation.

After the apostle Paul's comments in his First Letter to the Corinthians (2:6-16), I define theological formation as the ongoing task of becoming filled with God's wisdom. This activity is not restricted to pastors and full-time church workers.

Furthermore, it is not limited to professional theologians. In my view, and here I assume the appropriateness of my definition, theological formation is a task for the whole church. (3)

I expressed this idea to FBC Memphis on numerous occasions, in sermons, in adult Christian education seminars, in Friday night book clubs, in Sunday School discussion groups, and even in a radio Bible class; and, on each occasion, I made the same claim. Our church is a body of baptized believers, I would say, and we are a pilgrim people, straining forward in our lifelong journey to become more and more Christ-like; as a result, we ought to be relentlessly inquisitive about God, about Jesus, about church, and what these concepts mean for us today.

Lamentably, many modern Baptist Christians display disdain for such unsettled intellectual inquisitiveness. By their words and actions, or so it seems, they demand a settled, unquestioning approach to the gospel. Indeed, for a certain type of Baptist, the mechanics of following Jesus is a "done deal," or so it appears, and there is no need to inquire critically into what it means to be a disciple.

Thankfully, other Baptists know that the writers of the Bible do not permit us to give up on theological reflection. In truth, the biblical writers agitate our imagination. They incite us all by describing women and men who embody a spiritual way of life, an enacted pilgrim theology.

One of my sermon's at FBC Memphis, an address entitled "Easter Garden Theology," highlights the women of Mark 16 and how they, when seen together, in their zeal to proclaim the resurrection news, stand out as a potentially helpful model for all theologians. (4) In short, then, I believe we should all become concerned about the place and shape of Baptist church theology in the local Baptist church.

My emphasis on becoming filled with God's wisdom is (and was) quite deliberate. Indeed, when reflecting theologically with members of FBC Memphis, I sought to promote the idea that becoming suggests process, growth, journey, and development in one's learning.

As I wrote in an early article that appeared in the church's monthly newsletter, our knowledge of God is not perfectly formed; indeed, we are very much "on our way" to God. Our talk about God is theologia viatorum, the theology of pilgrims (the Latin viatores can be translated "the pilgrims"). Because of this fact, our theological theories, especially our Baptist theological theories, must not be thought of as timeless or universal; rather, they are provisional and tentative attempts to grasp the significance of God's ongoing offer of grace through Jesus Christ.

So, after a few weeks of studying and working with the congregation gathered at Poplar Avenue and East Parkway, I think I arrived at an understanding of why I was there, and they came to sense why it was important to work with me in advancing the cause of theological formation in our gathered community of believers. For us, theological formation, as a matter for the entire church, is the ongoing task of becoming filled with God's wisdom.

This initial understanding led to an important question: How do we become filled with God's wisdom? How do we grow in our knowledge of God? In another article written for the church newsletter, I suggested that a mature Christian is able to grow theologically in four ways: by reading Holy Scripture, by mining Christian history, by respecting human reason, and by evaluating personal as well as communal experience.

Intelligent and/or forward-thinking Christianity combines insights from all four sources. Of course, this four-fold understanding of theological growth is not my own model. It originated with John Wesley, a Methodist, and his famous Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Upon first introducing this model as a Methodist-inspired approach to thinking theologically, some members of the congregation became confused: Why would a Baptist theologian use a non-Baptist source in a Baptist church? Those at FBC Memphis who came to know me well, and there were many by the year's end, also came to understand and appreciate my use of non-Baptist and pre-Baptist theological sources. Indeed, they came to see how this educational strategy was part of my desire to see balanced catholicity in the church.

Most Baptist leaders know that Baptists have had a difficult time with ecumenism, with intrareligious dialogue, but they also realize that Baptists, perhaps more than any other type of Christian, must learn the value of interdenominational togetherness. My use of non-Baptist and pre-Baptist theological sources was an attempt to heighten the church's commitment to ecumenical sensitivity, to help the congregation realize that Baptists do not necessarily possess the whole theological truth, and to inspire the congregation to-become more willing to learn from others.

Having introduced my version of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, the question remained: How did I use it to shape the people of FBC Memphis? How did it work for them? And how did they use it to construct their own local theology? The answer to these questions is to be found in the next four sections.

Reading Holy Scripture

As "people of the Book," Baptists believe Scripture is the Word of God. Consequently, most Baptists often demand a "scriptural warrant" when asked to entertain a new theological idea. If the Bible does not support a fresh way of thinking religiously, some say, then there's no need to embrace it. With this caveat lector in mind, I tried to show the biblical background for all the ideas we discussed. This strategy was effective on most all occasions.

For instance, during each Sunday in September 1997, Dr. Corr preached from the Letter of James. He attempted to exegete one chapter each week. To augment his own preacherly discourse on James, Dr. Corr asked me to prepare and then give short theological commentaries on each chapter. I was happy to meet this challenge, to draw attention to the context and history of interpretation surrounding this late first-century text, and many members of the church seemed to appreciate the additional information that I tried to supply for them.

FBC Memphis publishes its sermons, making them available for collection a few days after the Sunday morning service, and for five consecutive weeks we agreed to publish my theological commentary alongside the sermon itself. The congregational feedback was very good; indeed, many said how much they valued our "tag-team" approach to biblical exposition. Needless to say, this exercise was one of our many attempts to engage Holy Scripture in a close and detailed manner.

On other occasions, I prepared and gave short theological reflections on the biblical approach to stewardship, which was my small but not unimportant contribution to the church's "A Future and a Hope" building campaign; to the Lord's Supper, about which there is a great deal of misunderstanding, especially among those Baptists who see it as "too sacramental"; to the place of children in worship, which-we Baptists frequently discuss with each other; and to the importance of telling stories during the Advent season.

During Lent, furthermore, the ministerial staff asked me to select a devotional book that the whole church might use to examine itself during the penitential season. I opted for Lent with Evelyn Underhill, a book that contains meditative pieces on encountering God in special and unique ways (mysticism). (5)

While Underhill relates her meditations to Scripture, thus showing that mysticism has its roots in the Bible itself, I asked Dr. Corr if I might use a midweek prayer meeting to address the appropriateness of her book. Here I tried to trace the origins of mysticism, which is a strange and esoteric topic at the best of times, to the direct and intuitive experiences of the heroines and heroes of the Bible-connecting Evelyn Underhill to Isaiah, to Mary, and to Paul.

This strategy worked well, I believe, which is to say that the members of FBC Memphis found that they were able to recognize and appreciate the link between the Lenten devotional book and the Bible, culminating in a deeper appreciation of their own sublime experiences of Divine.

Finally, on the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr., which occurred on a Sunday in 1998, I encouraged the ministerial staff to offer a speaking invitation to Steven L. McKenzie, one of my colleagues at Rhodes College, and a celebrated expert in the field of Hebrew Bible. McKenzie is the author of numerous books; and at the time, I thought that one of them, All God's Children: A Biblical Critique of Racism, might serve as a pertinent and timely reminder that the death of racism is contained in the biblical message itself. (6)

It was my hope that McKenzie would use some of the material from his book to show us how the Bible critiques the hatred that conspired to kill Martin Luther King. The ministerial staff agreed, McKenzie came to preach in honor of King, and FBC Memphis received a two-fold blessing. First, with McKenzie's help, we were able to see how the ancient text of the Bible relates to the contemporary world in which we live and, second, the local media became fascinated with our attempt to confront a community issue--King's death hangs like a dark cloud over the city of Memphis--and so the church received wide attention from local radio, newspaper, and television.

Mining Christian History

I encouraged the members of FBC Memphis to study their Christian history, including their Baptist heritage, in a concerted effort both to appreciate their past and to anticipate their future. We accomplished the task of mining Christian history in a number of different ways. First, we met over six weeks, in an adult Christian education group, which we called "The First Focus Seminar," and we read, discussed, analyzed, and evaluated the Re-Envisioning Baptist Identity document. (7) Here we brought our own personal tradition(s) to bear on what fifty leading Baptist scholars would have us think about our future as Baptists. After canvassing and noting the opinions of all seminar participants, and the opinions differed greatly, which is to be expected of Baptists, I wrote down and sent our ideas to Curtis Freeman, one of the document's signers, then a professor of theology at Houston Baptist University but now director of Baptist Studies at Duke University, and he replied to affirm FBC Memphis and to commend our efforts to think theologically in the local church. In his view, our collaborative attempt to think about our denominational distinctives was exactly what he and the other signees had in mind when they crafted the Re-Envisioning Baptist Identity document.

Second, we came to recognize that we are heirs to a Christian history, one that stretches back beyond Baptist beginnings, and which we ignore at our peril. Thus, I organized and led a seminar discussion of the doctors of the church, namely, those great architects of the Christian faith through the ages, including Jerome, Athanasius, Ambrose, Bede, Teresa of Avila, and many others. In addition, I facilitated a four week seminar devoted to the life and work of Karl Barth, our selected modern theologian, paying special attention to how he used Scripture and tradition as part of his own theological self-understanding.

Also, our monthly book club, the Anselm Class, which met on the first Friday of every month, examined and debated Hans Kung's Great Christian Thinkers. (8) Here, we had some spirited discussions about the merits and demerits of Paul, Augustine, Origen, Aquinas, Luther, and Friedrich Schleiermacher. This exercise, too, enabled us to quarry and unearth the riches of our Christian past.

Third, we gathered together to read and discuss the work of six famous Baptist theologians, namely, E. Y. Mullins, W. T. Connor, Charles Spurgeon, Walter Rauschenbusch, Carl E H. Henry, and Eric Rust. (9) Studying these thinkers enabled us to appreciate the rich diversity of Baptist theological thought and to sense that no two Baptists think alike in matters of faith and devotion. Therein lies no small virtue.

Finally, I wrote numerous articles for the monthly church newsletter. These were short op-ed pieces that were designed to provide a cultural context for the emergence of a specific theological issue, and here I invited members of the church to think about and assess my work on a diverse range of issues. Some of these issues included the historical development of Advent; the idea of Lent as the theological and devotional approach to Easter; the theological meaning of Ascension Day, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday; the origins and purpose of the lectionary (FBC uses the Revised Common Lectionary every week); the notion of God in Cyberspace (Christians and Christian ideas on the Internet); and, finally, my two-part series on landmarks in Christian history.

Respecting Human Reason at Memphis

At all points during my one-year tour of duty at FBC Memphis, I tried to underscore that in our energetic discussions we were using our minds, and so respecting human reason, to read and evaluate the theologians and theology that we examined. In the course of one year, we tried to think about and assess the arguments for the existence of God (Anselm and Aquinas); we attempted to appraise the TULIP mnemonic made famous by John Calvin; we sought to appreciate "the golden mouth" of John Chrysostom; and, finally, we tried to comprehend the spiritual experiences of the fifteenth-century Spanish mystic John of the Cross. Furthermore, we nurtured our intellectual talent for uncovering theological themes in popular culture, namely, in four films that we watched and discussed together: Romeo; Citizen Kane; Hanged on a Twisted Cross: The Life, Convictions and Martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and Amadeus.

Finally, we organized and hosted our inaugural lecture series, "The First Baptist Lectures in the Interpretation of the Christian Faith for Church and World," which occurred in October 1998. Our first lecturer was Nancy T. Ammerman, professor of sociology at Hartford Seminary, who spoke to the challenges and opportunities to be faced by Baptists in the twenty-first century.

Without a doubt, Ammerman helped us to think critically and reflect profoundly on matters of Baptist faith. In general, the lecture series was our attempt to introduce Memphis to the best minds in contemporary theology, especially contemporary Baptist theology, including Jim McClendon, former scholar-in-residence at Fuller Seminary, who came to Memphis a year before he died.

All stages in our theological journey, then, were marked by a desire to think through our beliefs and the beliefs of our forebears in faith. In short, and as far as we were able, FBC Memphis exemplified Anselm's definition of theology as "faith seeking understanding." With the aid of their minds, by respecting human reason, the diverse members of this church sought new and fresh answers to time-worn questions concerning God, reality, and meaning.

Evaluating Personal As Well As Communal Experience

Following the example of Anselm, who crafted his arguments for divine existence in the context of prayer, our theologizing was always conducted in a mood of worshipful reverence. After opening every seminar with a prayer, for example, and often from the Book of Common Prayer, which introduced a whole new way of praying to some of the gathered believers, I encouraged others to evaluate the material under discussion by assessing its relevance to their own experience and to the experience of our own local Baptist church.

In this way, the members of the church were able to see themselves and their own ideas (and experiences) against a background and whole history of theological reflection written and constructed every time we think about something connected to God, to Jesus, and to the church universal.

All things considered, I believe FBC Memphis experienced some growth in their knowledge of God in the year that I was with them. I believe they came to appreciate the role of theology in the on-going challenge and task of becoming filled with God's wisdom. Indeed, even now, several years after the fact, I continue to hear from members of the church who delight in the fact that they now have a deeper, more lasting sense of the richness of Christian history and thought.

Assuredly, I know that the people of FBC Memphis helped to enlarge my vocational self-understanding. I am a better theologian for having served at the church and, in truth, I know that working with such an open-minded and curious community convinces me that FBC Memphis is a church committed to the ceaseless task of theological formation.

An Inquisitive Mind, A Jubilant Soul

In my last meeting with the members of FBC Memphis, which took place at another weekday prayer supper, I posed a final question: Now that our theologian-in-residence is moving on, what sort of things do we need to do to continue being filled with God's wisdom? (l0) How do we continue to experience growth in the knowledge of God?

I encouraged the church members to cultivate two vital attitudes, namely, the inquisitive mind and the jubilant soul. In other words, I enjoined FBC Memphis to practice a Christianity that is intellectually respectable and spiritually sensitive. As the medieval Scholastics liked to express it, "Theology is taught by God, teaches of God, and leads to God" (Theologia a Deo docetur, Deum docet, et ad Deum ducit). And as the apostle Paul enjoined in his First Letter to the Corinthians, " ... sing praise with the mind also" (14:15).

Given our so-called "Baptist battles," it seems to me that our choice is not whether we should use theology in Baptist churches but, rather, what type of theology should we use? All Baptists are theologians, if only because we all talk about God, especially in our prayers and our witness, and so all Baptists must continue the task of becoming capable theologians. Thus, I think an inquisitive mind and a jubilant soul are two essential characteristics of twenty-first-century Baptist Christians.

Constructing Local Baptist Theologies: Some Suggestions

How might other Baptist leaders and churches learn from this experiment in local Baptist church theology? In answering this question, let me offer five suggestions for the future. These suggestions are offered for those Baptist churches that, like FBC Memphis, are eager to become filled with God's wisdom.

First, I think twenty-first-century Baptist churches ought to invent and establish their own grassroots gathering to deal with those tough theological questions--What is worship? What are the ordinances? Who should be in positions of leadership? What is the status of the Bible? What does mission look like in our local area?--that deeply impact congregational polity and service.

While some might say we do not need yet another Baptist organization, and part of me would understand where such an objection comes from, I think a local church theological forum might serve as a crucible for frank and open discussion, with both lay and ordained voices, and it might even offer theologically helpful hints to the whole congregation.

Second, I believe that our Baptist stress on Holy Scripture as the ruling guide for faith has caused us to become indifferent to other traditions of the Christian church. Thus, twenty-first-century Baptists should continue mining for the riches in our Christian history. Sunday School is an ideal place to study this wider tradition. Knowing how the Bible has been interpreted in the past, for example, will enable us to seek out and offer informed opinions of our own. Adult Christian education seminars and monthly reading groups are equally useful. Indeed, these venues offer good opportunities for Baptists to step outside our own denominational boundaries in search of enlightenment from non- or pre-Baptist sources. To be authentically Christian in the twenty-first century will require more than Baptist resources alone.

Third, we Baptists need a theology that helps each Baptist congregation to embody the Reformation doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. This will occur when we invite more lay readers of Scripture in morning and evening worship, when we encourage lay-led pastoral prayers, and when we offer more lay-led seminars and reading groups. Most Baptist churches possess an enormous range of talent and experience. This must be utilized as we set about the task of constructing local Baptist theologies. Lay-led ecumenism stands out as one practical and immediate area of concern. Indeed, perhaps this is a place to start, namely, with ordinary members of each Baptist church making contact with other Christian churches in the local area, with a view towards sharing services and/or working together on a community social-justice project.

Fourth, Baptist churches should look around their local community for outside speakers. One of the benefits of my being on staff at FBC Memphis and on the faculty of nearby Rhodes College was that I was able to persuade Steven L. McKenzie to preach on racial reconciliation. Every Baptist church sits in the middle of a community, sometimes a "town and gown" community, and many area leaders are willing to share the fruits of their daffy labor with local churches. Of course, the idea of establishing an annual lecture series on some aspect of Baptist theology is a good place to initiate such outside contact.

Finally, I urge Baptists never to underestimate their church library. All Christians are called to love and know God with their hearts and minds. Unquestionably, we meet this challenging tasks through reading and reflection, which can be both solitary and corporate. Perhaps each Baptist should work with his or her church library staff, then, to find, to investigate, and to evaluate those resources that will enliven and enrich their Christian experience.

Conclusion

The burden of my essay, an account of my time as theologian-in-residence at the First Baptist Church of Memphis, has been to suggest that all Baptists are called to a life marked by theological (as well as spiritual) formation. Thinking theologically is a necessary and inescapable aspect of what it means to be a disciple. The beginning and end of such discipleship is the God who beckons us forward in the name of Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. And the divine lure is to become filled with God's wisdom, to sing praise with the mind.

(1.) Hereafter, for the sake of brevity, I shall refer to the church as FBC Memphis.

(2.) Prepared for full-time Christian ministry at two British Baptist Colleges, namely, Manchester's Northern Baptist College and Oxford's Regent's Park College (1986-1991), I was called to the ministerial staff of the First Baptist Church of Memphis during the Summer of 1997. I was asked to become its first theologian-in-residence. Although not ordained at the time, largely because I elected to pursue an academic career, I was ordained by FBC Memphis on October 5, 1997. I dedicate my essay to the staff and members of the First Baptist Church of Memphis. Sine qua non.

(3.) I agree with Karl Barth's theological elaboration of the Reformation idea that all believers are priests:

   Theology is not a private subject for theologians only. Nor is it a private
   subject for professors. Fortunately, there have always been pastors who
   have understood more about theology than most professors. Nor is theology a
   private subject of study for pastors. Fortunately, there have repeatedly
   been congregation members, and often whole congregations, who have pursued
   theology energetically while their pastors were theological infants or
   barbarians. Theology is a matter for the church.

   See Karl Barth, "Theology," in God in Action (Edinburgh: T & T, Clark,
   1936), 57.

(4.) This sermon has been published on-line. See Darren J. N. Middleton, "Easter Garden Theology: A Sermon About Theology in the Local Church," available via: http:www.preaching.com/ preaching/online/February/middleton.html

(5.) G. P. Mellick Belshaw, ed., Lent with Evelyn Underhill (Harrisburg, Penn.: Morehouse Publishing, 1990).

(6.) See Steven L. McKenzie, All God's Children, A Biblical Critique of Racism (Louisville.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997).

(7.) See Baptists Today, 26 (June 1997): 8-10.

(8.) Hans Kung, Great Christian Thinkers (New York: Continuum, 1995).

(9.) We used Timothy George and David Dockery, eds., Baptist Theologians (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1990).

(10.) After five years on year-to-year contracts at Rhodes College, I was fortunate enough to secure a tenure-rack post in religion and literature at Texas Christian University, located in Fort Worth, Texas, and I was obliged to move from Memphis.

Darren J. N. Middleton is assistant professor of religion, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas.