Not many wise are called

What would theology look like if it were predicated upon the idea that good theology is of service to the laity? 


Most Christian lay people do not have a deep understanding of the doctrinal disagreements among the various Christian churches. They are able to parrot some points distinctive to their own church denominations, and they know that on those points they stand opposed to others, but it is often without deep reflection on what they are saying. Their practical and applied theology is rather simpler. The faith-in-action of the lay Christian, of any denomination, is to try to avoid evildoing, accomplish some welldoing and trust in Christ for the outcome. It is rather as in James Ch. 1:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Or as in Micah Ch 6:

[God] has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

That is, and should be, the faith of the unsophisticated people that make up the great mass of the laity--Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant. Those people are the ones the theologically sophisticated are supposed to serve and help. But it is no help to them when their pastors and teachers make war on one another. It is the duty of pastors and teachers to facilitate the lay people in the simple calling God has placed upon lay people. Let us recall that the lay people are the vast majority of Christians, thus by far they are most of the people for whom Christ lived, died, and rose again. It is also they who accomplish most of the work of the gospel. Those who teach them shall face a stricter judgement.

The church is not well served when church elders elevate divisive theological questions to an importance not merited in the daily lives of the faithful. Doing so sows confusion where it is not needed. The lay people's servants are doing them a disservice. Esoteric grievances of one church against another do not look much like a light yoke and easy burden.

Down at street level, outside the church, in the lay people's everyday lives and Christian endeavors, unity among believers is much more apparent than it is at the higher levels. The image I have in my mind is this, a large crate of food, a Protestant layman carrying one end, a lay Catholic carrying the other end, as they take it into a charity food bank. They went in together to buy the food so that they could buy more and get a better deal. On some level, what they are doing is Christian unity. On that level, unity happens all the time. Here there really are one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.

I feel a thought experiment coming on. What would theology look like if it were predicated upon the idea that good theology is of service to the laity? Whatever other changes that would cause, it would mandate that ideas be simple and direct, tied to everyday realities of life in Christ, and engage important matters not esoterica. It might even moderate the hostile tone toward other viewpoints. Rather than the usual refrain that we are right and they are heretically wrong, it might end up sounding more like we think we are righter than they are because our views are more practical.

When present-day Christians want to explain what is wrong with those other Christians from the church down the road, they turn to theologians for reasons, and unfortunately they find plenty of material. Our theologians offer us many points on which to find fault and feel superior. The other Christians pray invoking saints or don't believe in transubstantiation, or they are Calvinists or Arminians or have something else wrong with them. The fault finding tendencies in theology might be reduced if theology aimed at a practical result rather than abstract ones.