The Future of the Pulpit…

I’m a teacher, and perhaps not surprisingly, I enjoy nothing more than teaching the word of God. For many years I hoped to find a teaching post in a bible college, seminary, or ministry training center. Unfortunately, in most of the world today, one needs a PhD to even apply to those institutions. Somewhere along the line, we decided that that was an objective I was not called to pursue.

In truth, while that decision complicated my employment prospects, I do not regret having made it. I love to study, but as a confessional protestant, who embraces certain historic, orthodox theological concepts about the Word and the Spirit, I find myself uncomfortable in “the academy.” A friend once suggested that I avoid the PhD; he feared it could crush my spirit. The academy is not overtly hostile to believers, but neither is it openly supportive of trusting faith. The problem is not that the academy suspects the church’s intelligence; rather it is more that the academy is hostile to the tenets of traditional Christian belief.

Nonetheless, I sometimes look over my shoulder and dream of pursuing a degree and making my way back to the academy. But then I receive a theological journal that interrupts my reverie. This one contained a book review that killed that dream forever. Lest I unfairly prejudice you against the author or her work, I will refrain from sharing any references. But listen to what a reviewer wrote:

“While this study, through the use of post-colonial theory, poststructuralist psychoanalysis, and political-liberationist-feminist hermeneutics, provides insight into the theology of the cross, it achieves its distinctiveness as a narrative theology by its appeal to an Asian/Korean American experience. … This creative scholarship provides a Christology especially relevant to a world in which oppressed and oppressor, love and hate, self and other, are interpreted in oppositional categories that privilege patriarchal dominance in its various forms….”

I’m not necessarily proud of the fact that I understand most of that theological gobbledy-gook. Yet what really concerns me is that this is just the kind of biblical scholarship that generates excitement amongst seminary faculty and at Society of Biblical Literature meetings. Might I be forgiven for asking what “insight into the theology of the cross” will possibly be gleaned from this work? How will it contribute to people coming to the Cross and placing their trust in God through Christ? Sadly, it is the scholars who produce works of this nature that receive appointments to posts in seminaries and bible schools, where they become responsible for training our next generation of pastors and leaders. What effect do you think they will have on the church of tomorrow?

I worry about the church, for I fear many of its leaders today are not feeding the sheep. They are not nourishing God’s people on words of faith and the doctrines of God. Truthfully, I find an anger percolating up within me toward these shepherds who allow the sheep to be scattered and become prey for the enemy. But then I must ask myself—are these “pastors” (I use the scare quotes intentionally; the title no longer fits them), are they really at fault? Do they even know what it means to shepherd the flock of God? After all, they are products of a ministry education in which teachers who are embarrassed by faith train them for ministry. They graduate having spent more time reading post-colonial, post-structural, political-liberationist-feminist hermeneutical theory than they do the Bible. They are shaped by constant interactions with faculty, an increasing number of whom are not believers in any traditional sense of the word. Is it surprising then that they arrive in our pulpits absolutely clueless about the real Christian life? Should we be shocked to find that they preach pop-psychology and self-actualization rather than Scripture? And should we be astonished that they rely more on church marketing consultants than the Holy Spirit?

After reading a review like this I am grateful that God has separated me from work in the academy. I am thankful that I need not interact with an academic culture that celebrates perversion over holiness, and for whom such things as belief in the full, plenary, verbal inspiration of Scripture are antiquated, meaningless shibboleths. Yet I grieve for the church when I consider the future of the pulpit. We need to pray and ask God for shepherds after His heart, who will nourish His people with the warm milk and strong meat of the Word and the Spirit! We need to petition the Lord for a revolution within this enterprise of church, ministry and academy. May God have mercy on His Church. And may God have mercy on us all!