Childlike Wonder and Theological Education

"Only wonder comprehends anything" - Gregory of Nyssa 

I have spent the last three years, and part of the year before that, in seminary. I am about to dive back in, for the last academic year. This summer will be the only gap in my studies between the Fall of 22 and the Spring of 27. Even then, I have spent it pursuing research I started last spring and thinking about the internship I've got coming up next year. I've gotten a full dose of modern mainline Protestant theological education: old testament, new testament, systematic theology, and church history, all in a two semester format which allowed these subjects to breathe. I've had classes on preaching, worship, evangelism, pastoral care, and the sequence we call "UM boot camp" at Perkins. I leaned toward systematic theology and church history in my electives. 

 

When I get through with this, I'll have the degree my denomination requires of her Elders. Frankly, I would recommend a full MDiv to any Methodist deacon candidate as well, whether United or Global. There is so much to learn and so much to treasure. I've built a theological library of my own and proven the truth of what one of my mentor Elders once said, "Perkins trains theologians." Whether I ever become an UM pastor myself, I will know firsthand how United Methodist clergy are trained. Depending how things turn out, that might be more important than feeling a bishop's hands on my head and a stole on my shoulder.

 

I say all that not to boast, but show I am entitled to the opinion that follows. The rot of modernity and post-modernity runs very deep. Modernity is suspicious of antiquity. Post-modernity struggles to believe anything can be known at all. It struggles to believe the writers of the past did not write with ulterior motives because it has become obsessed with power: who has it, who does not, what is recorded, and what is forgotten. We have noticed "we have this treasure in jars of clay," which is fair, and gotten hung up on the cracks and the imperfections in the jars until we are all but blind to Eternal Light pouring through those cracks and flaws. We have missed the point of the jar, which is that "the incomparable power is clearly from God, and not from us." 

 

Suffice it so say, I have gotten a full dose of what scholars call the hermeneutics of suspicious and resistance. This is no way to read God's Word. It is not even a good way to read the History of the Church because while our histories are not inspired in the way the Scriptures are, we still risk sitting in judgment of another man's servant when we read the lives of people with whom we will, by God's grace, spend eternity. Instead, I approach the hermeneutic of suspicion with resistance, and the hermeneutic of suspicion with resistance. In the face of such (post-)modern presentism and "chronological snobbery," to quote C.S. Lewis, the humble, rational choice is rather to sit and listen to the Cloud of Witnesses - the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, and the martyrs - singing the Song of the Lamb, and to pray for the grace to join them. 

 

Jesus told us quite plainly we must receive the Kingdom of God as little children if we are to receive it at all. Children learning new things are awe-struck. They are enthusiastic. They're amazed at the new things they can do or the new ideas they've encountered. Ask any five year old who's discovered trucks or dinosaurs, or perhaps unicorns and fairies, to tell you about what he or she has learned. The prevailing attitude isn't suspicion or resistance, but "Yay!" This sort of childlike wonder understands the Faith the Apostles passed on to us. Wonder accepts the reality of the impossible - Trinity, Incarnation, death and resurrection - like a child. That way of receiving the Good News about Jesus will set us free, and none other.