Doing theology is a whole life’s work

I was born into the Baptist tradition. I embraced the Baptist tradition and have never left. I love being a Baptist. All other forms of Christianity are somewhat foreign to me.

I chose to attend and graduate from a United Methodist seminary. I felt perfectly free to argue my way to a graduate degree. I have never desired to be anything but a Baptist.

Baptist freedoms are very important. Two have been especially so.

The first is soul freedom. I believe I am free to appear before God without the assistance of a ritual or a priest.

Further, I am free to read and interpret the Bible for myself and to be my own theologian. I try to engage others in Bible study and theologizing. My journey as a Christian is ongoing, I am constantly collecting new information, and I dare to put into writing what I believe at any given time.

I have concluded that theology cannot be static in an evolving world. I would be embarrassed if my mind were not involved in changing with the arrival of more and better information.

The Bible is very important to Baptists. There is no more Baptist question than “what does the Bible say?”

However, for this Baptist, there are a lot more questions. Who wrote the Bible? When did the writers write the material? Who were the authors’ audiences? Why did the authors write it? What were the circumstances?

Many Baptists believe the Bible is a holy book. I left that camp a long time ago. The Bible is a very ordinary book, written by ordinary men about an extraordinary people and an extraordinary man, Jesus from Nazareth.

I have said that I was born into the Baptist tradition and that I was generously exposed to other Christian traditions. I chose wholeheartedly to remain a Baptist.

I was also born into the Christian faith. My parents were devout Christians. I believe they were servants of Jesus as best they knew how. I have chosen to follow the lead of my parents and continue to be a Christian. I have been exposed to other faiths but have no attraction to them.

I respect other faiths and the people who embrace them. I have never been tempted to leave my devotion to the one I call Lord and Christ.

My lifelong quest is to better understand and to better serve the prophet from a rural, impoverished area in Northern Palestine, who appeared some 2,000 years ago. My vocation has been (and is) doing Christian theology.

Today we have a whole host of truly fine Bible scholars and Christian theologians. I have feasted on their work. I have come to some conclusions that are vital for me but still open to refinement.

I have not found one Jesus of Nazareth. I have found two. The two are not at odds with one another. They complement each other and intertwine.

The first is a radical social, political and economic reformer. The second is Son of God and Savior. My own tension with most of my fellow Christian believers comes from the neglect of the first.

My best understanding of Jesus the reformer is found in the word “justice.” The word justice is one of the key issues of the Bible material.

Writers of Bible material disagree about what justice is and the way to achieve it. The Bible does not have a glossary to which the reader can turn and find a definition of justice. Good Bible students grasp the meaning of justice by joining in the Bible’s arguments and immersing themselves in the teachings of Jesus.

In our American understanding, justice is achieved when judgment and punishment is delivered equal to a crime committed. Justice as found in the Bible material is something different. In the Bible, justice is associated with two other key ideas, shalom (peace) and salvation.

Salvation is the experience of wholeness. Shalom is achieved when everything is the way it ought to be. Justice is the means by which the needs of everyone are achieved.

Jesus believed that salvation and shalom are possible in this world. He was a prophet of justice.

The most prayed prayer in Christendom is the prayer we call The Lord’s Prayer. It is the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray.

The key plea in the prayer is “your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.” For Jesus, life in this world was not a life to escape or to be abandoned. Life in this world was to be transformed. The words “on Earth” should be etched on the brain of every follower of Jesus.

My greatest complaint about Christian churches is that they have been absorbed with ushering people into a next world rather than working on the transformation of this world.

I have written about three key words that are found over and over again in the Bible. Jesus embraced a fourth. Jesus had a whole bag of tools with which to do justice work. Wealth and power are not found. Service was paramount. His advice was simple: “if any of you want to be great, let him be the servant of all.”

Shalom! I need to get back to my theologizing and serving. Next week I will share about Son of God and Savior.

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

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