Gary Neal Hansen

Theology. It's good for you.

  • About
    • Speaking
    • Contact
    • Home
  • Books
    • Love Your Bible
    • Christmas Play
    • Kneeling with Giants
    • Review Crew
  • Library
    • Join
    • Login
  • Blog
  • Lenten Prayer Class log in
    • Lenten Prayer Class Info
    • Class Info: Your First Sermon
      • Your 1st Sermon — Course Login
    • “Pray Like a Reformer” Class Info
      • Pray Like a Reformer Login
    • Advent Lectio Divina Class Info!
      • Lectio Divina Class Log In
  • Christmas Play
  • Love Your Bible
  • Kneeling with Giants

On ‘the art of theological reflection’

March 9, 2012 by Gary Neal Hansen Leave a Comment

When trying to make good use of writings that stand at a great distance from us–whether because they come from long ago or from across the boundaries of cultures, we need some guidelines, some sense of how we might go about it. We pick up a patristic theologian, say John Chrysostom, and find his style of writing challenging, or his concepts too foreign to make immediate sense.  It is far too easy to confuse “critical thinking” with dismissive criticism.

The first task is to get some context, even as minimally as finding out when and where he lived, the kinds of things he wrote, and what his influence has been.

The second is to keep reading long enough to move beyond the first painful encounter with an ancient rhetorical style or cumbersome a Victorian era translation.   (I remember well a seminar in which I had students spend two or three weeks on each of several major patristic figures.  The first week: Loathing and rejection.  Second week: “Hmm, maybe this guy has something to say.”  Third week: “I love this–Can’t we spend just a few more weeks on it?”  Then the same cycle with the next writer.)

But once we can read such a writer easily or enjoyably, we still need some way to make use of it–an approach that does not lead us to either reject the ideas as foreign and dated, or to elevate the past beyond reason and think that our own context and experience must be wrong.

For this a useful model is found in The Art of Theological Reflection by Patricia O’Connell Killen and John de Beer (New York: Crossroad, 1994).  The process they described can sound rather too programmatic.  It describes work the authors did over many years in their particular international ministry training contexts.  But even if one does not want to take on what they describe as a procedure or program, they offer a needed perspective: some convictions to keep hold of, rather than steps to walk through.

The nugget of this is found in a venn diagram which my computer skills do not allow me to reproduce.  I’ll describe it instead.  One circle is “experience” meaning the full self of the person engaging in theological reflection.  The second circle is labeled “tradition” meaning the content of the Christian faith, and for our purposes it is the faith as found in the writings of the greats of past eras.  The place the two circles overlap is what they call “theological reflection.”

Stand in “tradition” without overlapping into experience and you get the dogmatism they call the “standpoint of certitude.”  Everything is evaluated in terms of the points of view we held before we started.  Faith, or ministry, or theology all get forced into the pre-existing mold like playdough pushed through a “fun factory.”  Tradition here can take in a great deal, but in evangelical bumper sticker language that is “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.”  The risk is that we are so certain that even God cannot shake us into growth and change.

On the other hand, stand entirely in “experience” without the part that overlaps the tradition we evaluate all things by our own little selves.  No credence is given to voices outside ourselves, whether they be the voices of Prophets and Apostles, or their lesser servants like Chrysostom.  Measuring ideas, including theological teachings, by whether they make sense to us personally is quite popular today, but it should not be confused with theological reflection.

The authors point out that these two problematic stances are so common today as to dominate the conversation.  That means we need something else–a way to discuss the Christian faith, its teachings, its teachers, its practices and priorities–that brings the real us into conversation with the real faith and faithfulness of the larger church.  Authentic theological reflection “invites us to befriend our Christian heritage, our lived experience, our culture, and our contemporary faith community as conversation partners on the journey of faith.” (p. 3)

The authors suggest we take a third stance, within the overlap of experience and tradition. They call it “exploration.”  It will require genuine self-knowledge, to allow us to stand somewhere as we look at tradition. It will require there to be a tradition, with a respected voice, to question or affirm our personal experience.  But if we live in that place where tradition and experience are in active conversation, we can profit enormously.

There is much more to the process, and much of what follows in the book is intended to help one be more acutely and accurately aware of the experience part of the venn diagram described above.  If experience is to be a part of the conversation (not an authority to weigh alongside Scripture or to define truth, but a genuine part of the conversation) then we need to spark or nurture awareness of several aspects of experience–the things that happen, the feelings within us, the stories and metaphors we use to describe our experience, the actions we take.  We come to know what our experience is, including where we stand, the culture we stand within.

The task here is to find ways to take the other circle with equal seriousness.  It takes some discernment in a Protestant context where the default position on “tradition” is to raise up the Reformation slogan of “Scripture alone”.  But even reforming theologians like John Calvin weighed voices of the tradition very heavily.  Calvin was in constant dialogue with Chrysostom, lauding his exegesis and regretting points of his theology.  Even more frequently he was engaged with Augustine, lauding his theology and regretting his exegesis.

Perhaps it is too simplistic to say, but the task today starts by reading the tradition.  We bring ourselves as honestly as we can, and we invite the great figures of the past with as much understanding as we can find.  Then we live in the place of overlap, ready to seek wisdom for now and the future as servants of Christ.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Filed Under: approaches Tagged With: Augustine, Calvin, Chrysostom, theological reflection

Hungry for a way to go deeper with God?

A richer engagement with Scripture helps you as a Christian. It also helps you as you relate to grown ups and kids in ministry.

Subscribe to my (almost) weekly newsletter and I'll send you a free ebook copy of Love Your Bible: Finding Your Way to the Presence of God with a 12th Century Monk.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

AWESOME children’s sermons? Absolutely! Here’s how.

I'd love to send you my free Children's Sermon Cheat Sheet! You'll learn eight solid strategies to engage with kids on the Gospel.

Subscribe and I'll send it to you -- plus all my new children's sermons will come to you in my almost-weekly newsletter.

Theology. It’s good for you.

I'm a Church historian by trade. My writing, speaking, and teaching explores the Christian past to equip today's disciples. Join me here for regular posts on the best of theology, spirituality, community, and ministry. read more…

Recent Posts

  • A Children’s Sermon on John 10:22-30 — The Good Shepherd
  • A Children’s Sermon on John 21:1-19 — Easter 3
  • A Children’s Sermon on Luke 24:1-12 — Easter!
  • A Children’s Sermon on Luke 19:28-40
  • A Children’s Sermon on John 8:1-11 — The Woman Taken in Adultery

Search the site

Need a new way to engage with the Bible?

Subscribe to my newsletter and I'll send you a free ebook copy of Love Your Bible: Finding Your Way to the Presence of God with a 12th Century Monk. It's a modern introduction to a classic spiritual discipline that brings prayer and Bible study together.

It's manageable. It's fun. And it's free, along with my (almost)weekly newsletter that brings you every new article and announcement.

Archives

Let’s connect on social media…

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Search the site

  • Community for Mission
  • Letters to a Young Pastor
  • Christianity as a Second Language
  • Role Models for Discipleship

© 2025 garynealhansen.com · Rainmaker Platform