Theology and Speech

I am reading a very interesting article from the latest IJST by Jean-Yves Lacoste. I will blog on the entire article when I finish processing it, but until then here is a taste on some of his thoughts on theology and speech.

The first risk theology runs is not the risk of being judged wrong; it is the risk of being judged meaningless. There will always be those who reject the thought of the involvment of the Absolute in the sufferings of Jesus, and will deny the truth of Christianity accordingly. But when positivism rejects theological propositions as canidates for inclusion in the class of propositions that may be true or false and so may bear a meaning, then meaningfulness becomes the predominant question. With a speech that is ‘folly’ rationality seems to collapse, and the best thing to do is to laugh at it, since it does not deserve the honour of a refutation. With a speech that is ’scandal’ the faith and hope of Israel seem to be denied, and the only thing is to excommunicate those who have made it. The foolish speech is essentially ‘barbarous’, illogical and pre-logical, the merest pretence at speech. The scandalous speech is essentially blasphemous, sinful and self-condemned. So the question is not about truth and falsehood. Follw and scandal are either more than false, since they need to be resisted more than false opinion does, or less than false, since falsehood can be set right while nonsense cannot be made any sense of. The are unthinkable, pure and simple, and so incredible. Christian theology will claim that its third language criticizes both the Greek logos and the Jewish logos, but the price paid for its critical distance is extraordinarily high. THeology things that it alone knows what the most important words really mean: God, mankind, world, salvation, etc. etc. But it will have ro persuade us that the language it deploys is intelligible, not senseless; that it is capable of giving men and women access to a community of reasonableness, not simply following the irrational free play of their emotions.

I’m still alive

So I have started a ThM program at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL (outside Chicago). So far I am greatly enjoying it. I’ve met a lot of people and had some very thought provoking theological discussions. I am taking Hermeneutics, Johannine Theology, Metaphysics, Theological Research Methods, and Political Theologies. I think I am most excited about Johannine and Political Theologies because of the papers I am going to write; I think they should both also feed into my thesis well.

Anyway, hopefully I will be blogging more as thesis and paper thoughts cross my mind. And I still want to blog through some of the parables of Jesus. Who knows what will come…

Good advice from a criminal

I have been reading Tony Campolo’s book Letters to a Young Evangelical and early in the book came across a story that has really stuck with me…

Tony recounts the story of Charles Peace. Peace was a notorious criminal in 1870’s London. On February 25, 1879 Peace was to be hanged. As he was led to the gallows an Anglican priest followed closed behind reading from the Prayer Book, “Those who die without Christ experience Hell, which is the pain of forever dying without the release which death itself can bring.”

These words shocked Peace who, upon hearing them, turned to the priest and shouted, “Do you believe that?”

The priest, not expecting it, stammered out “Well…I…suppose to do.”

Peace then said the words that stuck with me…”Well, I don’t. But if I did, I’d get down on my hands and knees and crawl all over Great Britain, even if it were paved with pieces of broken glass, if I could just rescue one person from what you just told me.”