AAR: Study in place of worship?

By Richard A. Kauffman

Whenever I attend the annual meetings of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, as I did last month in San Diego, I always wonder how many of the 10,000 or so registrants are scholars of religion but not practitioners of any one religion. I wonder if their scholarship is a substitute for faith—or a scholarly cover for pursuing questions of faith.

If this sounds judgmental, a confession is in order: I went to seminary during the Vietnam War era not to prepare for ministry, although I ended up in ministry; and not even to avoid the draft, although it had that effect. My motivation was my attempt to reconstruct a worldview, since the one I grew up with had been dismantled during my undergraduate years. The formal study of theology was my attempt to rediscover God through an intellectual pursuit.

There is a place for the academic study of religion. A mature faith is certainly an informed, self-critical one. Furthermore, outsiders can see things that insiders overlook. But studying religion apart from a personal commitment to faith and involvement in a faith community strikes me as analogous to studying the institution of marriage but never getting married.

At AAR/SBL I gravitate toward speakers for whom theology or scriptural study isn’t a mere academic exercise, but a consequence of a life of worship and discipleship. This time I heard a passionate and rousing address by N. T. Wright on the place of God in the public sphere. People crowded the room, sitting in the aisles to hear Wright’s wisdom. I also attended a panel discussion on “Reading Scripture with the Church.” It was heartening to hear Amy Laura Hall (Duke University) imply that the fact she teaches Sunday school makes a difference in her work as a Christian ethicist, and Stephen Fowl (Loyola College in Maryland) report that almost everything he publishes he tests first in a congregational setting.

The subject matter of religion is not simply an “It,” to use Martin Buber’s terms, although it can be approached that way. The subject matter is a “Thou” who can’t be firmly grasped through the mind alone, but requires the affections and the will. As Swiss theologian Fritz Buri once said, we can’t speak responsibly about God unless we’ve first spoken with God.

Comments

[Real Live Preacher]

Jungian analysts speaks of a similar dynamic. It is not enough to read Jung. You can read all you want about dreams and myths and archetypes and analysis.

But you will not move down the path of individuation until you get into analysis and do the work of it.