Toms summer 2004 article

Article from Epistle to the Presbyterians, Summer 2004

from Thomas A. Sweet

I begin with this admission: I know less now than I did when I came to you as your pastor ten years ago. Or, may I should say it another way. I thought I knew more than I did in 1994 and now I know how much I do not know. I like it better that way for it makes every day an intriguing adventure of discerning and pondering the immense and myriad mysteries that are God and life.

Here is my greatest theological discovery of these last ten years: Theology is contextual and tentative. I did not always think so. When I arrived in Jamestown, I still was in the spiritual thralls of Christendom (think Christian Empire-monolithic and hegemonic). But life experiences and continuing study have extricated me from those conceited and confining bonds. I used to think of the faith in terms of absolutes and certainties: Truth does not change. Ever. It is the same everywhere. For everybody. I now have recanted such overblown arrogance.

Theology is contextual. Where we "reside" in life goes a long way in determining how we "see" and talk about God. A campesino living in a Latin American barrio experiences God differently than I do. An American Indian's conception of God will not be the same as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant's. A father whose daughter has dies too young cannot believe the same things in the same way after her death as before. A son whose beloved father dies suddenly will search for emendations to his faith in God. The atrocities and carnage of war belie the pristine niceties of ivory tower theologies. Theology with meaning and relevance seeks to answer the question, "Who is God hear and now?"

Theology is also tentative. It is provisional, unsettled, open always to revision. How silly it is for us ever to think that we can speak with conclusiveness or finality about the inscrutable God. How dangerous it is when we forget that all theology is our human attempts to speak about our encounters and experiences of God and is not holy writ dropped out of a celestial heaven. Here is what Fred Craddock, the popular Chautauqua preacher says about those who are too theologically sure of themselves: "They think they've walked around God three times and taken pictures." I also like this couplet by Raymond Nelson:

Orthodoxy Heterodoxy

When dogma takes the place of faith When people dare to dream and think

And creeds become enshrined, And leave some things unsure,

Then cant enshackles thought itself Then they can walk by faith, and trust

And chains bind every mind. The Spirit's overture.

From the early consternation of some to the current delight of many, this church has opened itself to an important and pregnant conversation between orthodoxy (adhering to the accepted, traditional, and established faith) and heterodoxy (questioning accepted or traditional beliefs, especially in church dogma and doctrine). While every member is free and welcomed to find his or her own place on the theological spectrum here, we have not shied away from exploring the difficult and fascinating questions that archeology, science, and contemporary scholarship raise in search of an honest, authentic, and working faith. How grateful I am to be in the midst of a congregation with hearts and minds sufficiently robust to embrace the notion that God is honored by our questing.

My best wishes to you for a wonderful and refreshing summer. I hope to see you here and there around this beautiful county-on the lake, at Chautauqua, cheering the Jammers, sitting in a beach chair at Barcelona, taking in the expansive view from the Leunsmann Park Overlook-and in the pews of Bellinger Chapel on Sunday mornings. You are good people whom I love dearly. Thank you for everything. Peace be with you.

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