New Henry Center Site

Many of us know of the CTU made famous by the series, 24. Readers may be less familiar with the other CTU based on the campus of Trinity International University. Last week, Dr. Douglas Sweeney, Director of the the Carl F. H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding, sent the following announcement:

It is with gratitude to God that I announce to you today the launch of a brand-new Henry Center website. As I hope you will see for yourselves, this site has a great new look, up-to-date details on the ministries of the Center, and important information about our mission and future plans, as well as an audio-video archives full of the Center's previous lectures and some video-taped interviews on pastoral concerns with some of the Center's recent speakers (downloadable for free).

I had the privilege of conducting the interview with Dr. Stephen Seamands about his book, Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service.

Twenty Years of Pastors' Conference Audio

The good folks at Desiring God Ministries have made the last twenty years of their annual pastors' conference messages (a total of 127) available online for free! Looking over the themes, I think I'll start with 2001. What a gift this is to the body of Christ. Many thanks to Dr. Piper and everyone at DGM!

Head and Heart

Les Newsom at Common Grounds Online wonders if he's the only one who hated hearing at every youth retreat he attended that the 18 inches between his head and heart were what was keeping him from being a committed Christian. I didn't become a believer until I was 19 so I missed out on the youth retreats. But I hear that kind of thinking from adults (who may have been at the same retreats as Les) and I hate it now (see yesterday's post).

While I don't share Les's conviction that substance dualism (recognizing a distinction between soul and body) is ultimately to blame for the pitting of head and heart against each other, I'm in wholehearted agreement with his contention that the head/heart dichotomy has no biblical warrant. Les writes:

...any good exegete of Scripture will tell you that the Bible’s understanding of the “inner zones” of humanity centers on the conception of the “heart.” In Scripture, the “heart” houses not just the feelings, but all of life. My thinking, my feelings, my believing, my committing, my loving: it all proceeds from the heart. Proverbs 4:23 comes to mind, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

The head/heart dichotomy is so popular among Christians that it's unlikely that we'll let go of it easily. But Les points out the advantages of doing so:

Leaving the head/heart dichotomy as an apparatus to think about my inner life reorganizes the priorities of Christian self-discipline, helps keeps first things first, and gets me off the hopeless treadmill of trying to figure out if I feel like a Christian today.

Related Tags: Biblical anthropology, Christianity, Anti-intellectualism, Theology, Dualism

Theology, Theory, and Practice

A friend currently in seminary has told me about disagreements that sometimes arise between students preparing for the pastorate and those looking forward to an academic vocation. Members of the former group don't always appreciate the benefit and/or necessity of theoretical, abstract study whereas future academicians can overlook the necessity to relate their subjects of interest to concrete people, situations, and relationships. Most of my Christian life has been spent swinging between the two poles in search of equilibrium. There are aspects of both academic and church life that appeal to me. Likewise, there are elements of both I find frustrating. I don't think I fit squarely in either environment and I'm disheartened by the compartmentalizing that frequently pits them against each other, confining singing to the sanctuary and scholarship to the classroom.
I gravitate to Christian authors who are discontent with the all too frequent division between the life of the mind and life in the Spirit, between theory and practice. While I understand the need to make distinctions for the sake of categorizing, I can't stand the segmenting of theology into systematic and practical realms as though the former is not practical and the latter is not systematic.
John Frame is one of my favorite authors. My seminarian friend gave me a copy of an article he wrote in the Winter 2002 issue of Reformation and Revival Journal called "Studying Theology as a Servant of Christ." He offers the following helpful explanation of the relationship between theory and practice:

The broadest term I know to describe everything theology does is the term "application"; hence my slogan, "theology is application." Of course, the term "application" is susceptible to some misunderstanding. It has suggested to some a type of theology that abhors anything "theoretical" and focuses only on the "practical." So let me say here that that is not at all what I have in mind. Theoretical work in theology is very important. My only concern is to point out that even the most theoretical sort of theology falls under the label "application." For why do we develop theological theories, after all? Only because they address real questions people have on matters of spiritual importance. So theory is part of application.
So this way of looking at theology does not elevate the practical over the theoretical in any general way. On the other hand, neither does it elevate the theoretical over the practical. Theoretical and practical questions are on a par with one another, all fair game for the theologian
I also resist the notion that theory is somehow the basis of practice. A much more biblical view is that Scripture itself is the basis of both theory and practice, and that, under the authority of Scripture, theory and practice serve one another.

Theology is not a hindrance to the real work of the church. Theology, understood as Frame describes it, is the work of the church.