The Anxiety of Doing Theology

Reflections on Contextual Theology (Final)

About a mont ago, I came back from a trip to the region of Ixcán in Guatemala. This is a very remote place that experienced some of the worst of the Guatemalan war. I was there to deliver a class on contextual Bible reading and theology to some local pastors and church leaders. For the last several weeks I have shared stories, reflections, and the theological insights that I learned through my experience there, for the pastors and leaders were my teachers, not the other way around. You can find the links to this series below.

On The Way

Violent Readings of the Bible

Hagar and the Pastors

Bathsheba and the Pastors

Today, I want to close the series with a story from a long time ago. It is one of the experiences that shaped who I am becoming as a human who does theology.

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I took this pictures in the city of Antigua Guatemala, in 2018. That is how doing theology from below feels like some times.

I remember the one of the first times I dared to do contextual theology. It was not easy, for I had been taught to repeat theological presuppositions and arguments. I was with my friend, Joel Van Dyke, standing near the edge of a cliff. We were overlooking Guatemala City’s garbage dump. We saw people rummaging through trash, trucks dumping loads of waste, and vultures circling the sky. The smell was rancid. The smoke coming from the trash heaps made our eyes burn, and the scent of putrid decomposing trash made us gag more than once.

As we stood there, Joel opened the Bible and read the passage of the levite and the concubine in Judges 19 (I encourage you to go read the text if you don’t know the story). “The word of the Lord,” he said at the end of the reading. Others who were with us responded by saying, “Thanks be to God.” And, I thought, “who in their sane minds would dare to say, thanks be to God, in a place like this?” my thoughts raced and intertwined themselves with the images of vultures landing on the trees above us. The smell was nauseating. I felt dizzy. “Thanks be to God, my ass!” I thought.

At that point, I was twenty-three-years-old. I had just been let go of my first “real” job after Bible college. My faith was hanging by a thread and these people had just said, “thanks be to God” as we saw people fighting over trash.

Then, Joel, asked a question, “who is like the dismembered concubine? Who has been cut off in pieces?” Another leader who was with us said: “in my neighborhood, there are girls who show up cut off in pieces inside trash bags.” We all stayed silent for a bit. Then, Joel asked, “who has been cut off from society and any rights?” I dared to respond. The words jumped out of my mouth, “the poor and marginalized.” Then, I realized I had just done theology! I felt a mixture of excitement and fear. I couldn’t be doing theology. I had just finished Bible college a couple years before. Theology is what people like Jürgen Moltman, Elsa Támez, René Padilla, and those whom I read did. Not me, a student, learner, activist working in the slums of Guatemala City.

I did not know it then, but I had been deeply marked by a theological methodology that left the work of doing theology to those with authorship of many books, PhDs, and the right academic credentials. Interestingly, the theologians I was reading would have pushed me to do just what I had done. Moltman would have said that I had just seen the crucified God in the poor. Tamez would have noted that the reading of judges 19 we did was liberating. Padilla would have joined the conversation to remind us the integrality we need to serve with, not for or to the marginalized. But, 23-year-old me didn’t know any better. I was just used to regurgitating the theological presuppositions that would affirm the doctrine of the denomination I grew up. I had put a cover on the spring of living water that is Jesus and the narrative of Scripture.

I have to look back at young Me with grace and love, for it has taken me over fifteen years to maintain a certain degree of audaciousness to do theology. I still get anxious when I dare to question and re-read the fathers of the church. I feel unsure when I disagree with some of the theologians I admire. I second-guess myself when I articulate a theological argument that is not in conformity with my theological surroundings. I still get nervous thinking that some of my old professors may read my book and deem me a heretic. This is the anxiety of doing theology.

It is not an anxiety like the one Kierkegaard talked about. It is not “sinful.” It is the result of growing up in evangelical christianity. However, this anxiety has transformed into excitement when I find myself in the face of new ways of reading the Bible and my context. It is an ambivalent feeling, for it warns those doing theology about the possibility of being wrong, and it also pushes our desire to explore beyond our belief system to see if we can find God outside our theological boundaries. What I enjoy the most about this process is when I find out that I am wrong about something. It opens the possibility to learn a new way of being in the world.

This is not to say that systematic theology is bad. I use the tools that I learned in seminary to push the doctrinal boundaries that surround me. This is to say that doing theology is risky business, if we dare to do it freely, transgressing boundaries, and from below. I have not figured it out. I am pretty sure I still don’t know any better. I may be wrong. If I am, I can only hope that the community that I am a part of keeps me pointed to Jesus.