The Big Idea
There are two ways to approach a distinctive theological identity.
- By defining what you are not as opposed to others.
- By defining what you are in relation to your core ideals and beliefs.
Note
Used as LCOS 📃Epistle Jan 2025
It strikes me that a balanced theological perspective, or any clear answer to the question, “who am I and what do I believe?” Can take two approaches in order to achieve a sense of boundary and defined space. Because without boundaries, over time, identity will fade or drift and become something else entirely. And so there are two main ways to achieve that kind of mental and even sometimes physical boundary between what I am and believe, and what I am not and do not believe.
What I am not
The approach that seems to be the most mishandled is the definition of ones own views in opposition, or contrast, to someone else. This approach can very quickly create a strong sense of who I am as opposed to someone else. This is because it creates a clear in group (what makes me or others belong here).
However, this kind of formulation quickly tempts us to create flat caricatures of outsiders. These kinds of caricatures are constructed for the sake of my own self identity rather than being honest about who the other people around me are.
One example of this, that comes to us out of the late 1900s, is the idea that crossing one self is a “Catholic” idea and not crossing oneself means you are more “Lutheran.” That distinction has nothing to do with what is believed or understood about faith. Rather it is a purely convent way to see who is “this” or “that.”
Yet the opposite handling of what I am not is also easy to fall into. In the pluralistic world we live in, it is very easy to want to tear down all walls and boundaries and say “we are all the same!” While this may foster a feeling that we are welcoming, it does a poor job defining who I really am.
The consequence of these mushy boundaries ends up showing up where we least expect it. When I invite and welcome others to join me in faith and worship, that invitation loses its credence as it looses its coherence. After all, who wants to be a part of something they could find just as easily anywhere else in the world?
An example of this is ecumenism for the sake of ecumenism. Many movements that undertake this mission end up white washing and minimizing any kind of disagreement so that there can be a big happy family kind of feeling. But no family will last long with few things to hold it together.
A balanced use of “what I am not” can be seen in classical Christian confessions like the Athanasian creed, as well as the book of Concord. Both of these documents are not afraid to define who we are not, but it does not use this approach as the primary mode of definition. Rather, the anathema sections most often come at the end of an article of faith in places like the Augsburg Confession and are often the shortest sections. What we can glean from this is that it is important to point out differences, and even disagree, but that is not the primary thing that makes up a theological identity.
What I am
The primary way in which we should think and define our theological identity is first and foremost in the positive proposition of what we do indeed believe and confess. The Apostles’ and Nicene creeds are the classical example of this. Even though the Nicene creed was literally written in response to Arianism, and other heresies, the main focus is on what we DO believe not on what we DON’T believe.
Putting them Together
The best way to think about what all this should look like can be approached using a thought experiment. Beauty is one of those things that is widely debated but it can serve as a good foundation to help us get a sense of things.
Let us begin: as we weigh two options, begin to picture in your mind that there are fundamentally two kinds of beauty.
Beauty like that of a song or poem that invites one into the experience of the sound and poetry. This kind of beauty broadens and shares freely with the world around it. When one sings a song, you do not take away from its beauty, but can even add to it, and bring others into experiencing its beauty with you.
But there is also beauty that excludes and seeks status by pushing others down. To imagine this kind of beauty you can think about any kind of beauty pageant. The entire premise of the thing is that someone is “more” beautiful than everyone else. The only thing that makes winning meaningful is that others lose. No one wants a crown that is easy to get.
One beauty invites and welcomes, while the other seeks to exclude and self-elevate. In much the same way, “what I am” and “what I am not” can be lived out in both of these ways.
One can weaponize differences and use them as a way to exclude and elevate the self at the expense of others. This can often be seen in some that claim to fight for doctrinal purity in a way that alienates and antagonizes others. However the same is true with those that go the other direction and claim that doctrinal boundaries do not matter. This weaponizes the lack of boundaries as a defining characteristic of the self. This attitude creates its own kind of elite who are enlightened enough to have dispensed with any kind of theological moorings. Yet whether one elevates ones self by viscously exerting boundaries, or wantonly dismissing them, both operate from the kind of beauty that seeks to elevate ones self at the expense of others.
The Invitation
Clearly the better alternative is the beauty that welcomes and expands. One is welcomed in to a defined space to walk around and explore. Psalm 46 is a wonderful example of what this kind of experience should look like.
Psalm 48:12-14 (ESV)
Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels, that you may tell the next generation that this is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever.
God is compared to the towers and spires of Jerusalem and the temple. The psalmist invites you not into a place that is elevated for its own sake, but a place that is valuable because it is true. The invitation is for everyone! The beauty expands and broadens to all who accept the invitation to come and see. After all, this is the same invitation as “Come and follow me” uttered by Jesus on the sea shore. An invitation that is not a ridged set of rules, nor a nondescript “going with the flow,” it is the real enfleshed reality of living near God. Because living near God should be the goal of any theological perspective. It is not primarily to be proved right (elevating the self again) but to be welcomed and to welcome others into the place of truth. A place built not by human hands, or minds, but by the hands of God before the foundation of the world. That place is one we should seek to inhabit with trembling and humility just as the Israelites walked through the red sea with awe. We too are invited to come and see who God is, and when we do, we begin to understand. A theological identity is meant to be an expansive welcoming. One that is defined and discreet just like the temple and its city. Yet large enough to encompass the grandeur of God. Strong walls that guard and protect with an open gate to welcome and host.
In the ethos of this invitation, let me leave you with one of my favorite quotes about Scripture:
Scripture as a Stream
One of my favorite quotes about Scripture:
from Gregory the Great’s Moralia on Job, section 4.
Scripture is like a river … broad and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough there for the elephant to swim.
Made famous by C.S. Lewis’s use of it.