Theology: Top Down or Bottom Up?

                                                 Theology:  Top Down or Bottom Up?

                                                 By Dr. Juan A. Carmona, 

Several questions are asked about the theological enterprise.  Some people may ask as to whether theology is a worthwhile task engaging in.  There are people who consider it a waste of time, an exercise in mental gymnastics or as James Cone would call it, ¨intellectual masturbation.¨  Others consider it irrelevant to life, because there are more ¨important¨ things that we should devote our attention to.

As a person who believes that theology (God-talk, or a discourse about God) is important, I am more concerned with whether theology should emerge from the ¨experts¨ in the field, i.e. those who have advanced degrees and specialization in theology, or whether it should emerge from the average person sitting in the pews, and partaking with the working class to make a living. 

To begin with, I strongly believe that theology is important because it is an attempt to help us make sense out of what we believe relative to God and to God´s dealings in human history.  Through theology, we seek to articulate our understanding of God´s self-disclosure throughout history via the prophets, the traditions, the Scriptures, and from a Christian standpoint, through Jesus of Nazareth.  Through theology, we also seek to determine how our understanding of God establishes the foundation as to how we should live in relation with God and with each other.  

Having said that, I hold firm to what my theology professor said while I was in seminary, i.e. all theology is tentative. In other words, since theology is a human construct, no theology can claim to be either complete or infallible. All theology is subject to critique, questioning, correction and revision.  No theology can claim to have the ¨final" answer to the issues of God and life.

To the question of whether theology should be a ¨top down¨ or ¨bottom up¨ task, I can only respond that the theology of the first-century Church was a ¨bottom up¨ expression of the Church´s self-understanding of God and of its mission.  Its theology did not emerge from the academy or from the comforts of an air-conditioned office. The Church´s discourse about God emerged from its life of the combat against heresy on the one hand, and experiencing persecution on the other.  The Christian Scriptures (New Testament) are reflective of a Church ¨on the run,¨ if you will.  Its theology was not forged by experts in the field, but rather by people who practiced their faith in the midst of ¨dungeon, fire, and sword.¨

It was after the Church became co-opted by the Roman Empire and had its faith compromised and diluted, that its theology began to be handed down by those who held the reigns of power.  Eventually, the theology of the Church was aligned with Greek philosophy as the Church sought to make it look intellectually respectable and appealing from a scholarly point of view.

In the late 1960´s and early 1970´s, a new way of doing theology emerged from the countries of the so-called ¨Third World,¨ especially from Latin America.  This new approach was referred to as ¨Liberation Theology,¨ which emerged, not from the comforts and luxury of academia, but rather from the oppression, poverty, and suffering experienced by the vast majority of people in these countries. This theology is a ¨bottom up¨ theology which threatens those in power in both the Church and the society. It is a denunciatory and prophetic theology which calls into question the assumptions and presuppositions of the ideologies that reflect the interests of the dominating parties.

This writer (yours truly) invites you to examine this way of doing theology, not because it is a fad or a fashion, but rather, because it affirms you and every other member of the community of faith as a theologian.  It is a theology which makes us aware that the community of faith is a movement established, not to be self-centered or self-engrossed entity, but rather to be an agent of God´s liberating activities in the world through Yeshua Hamaschiach (Jesus the Messiah).   All aboard!

In the Name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer. Amen!

Juan A. Carmona