What are the roles of theologian/businessman in the Church?

I want to highlight something Dan Morehead said in one of his comments from the last post:

I don't want church to be a place where you go to get information. Christianity isn't a set of propositions to which one must assent. Practices like baptism, Eucharist, and meeting the needs of those who may be marginalized, along with right preaching and worship, should form us to be the kind of people who can live faithfully as children of God.

I completely agree with this statement. But I have a feeling this isn't what most people experience in their church life. Most people I know do go to church to get information. Most people I know do believe that Christianity is a set of propositions to which one must assent. Maybe some reading this blog are in that group.

The lines of business and church have bled but in all of the wrong ways. Rather than approaching all that we do -- business, church, dinner with friends -- as worship, we treat church as yet another thing to consume. We shop for the best speaker/music/style and we place all of the responsibility of studying and teaching Scripture on the pastor.

What if in the church everyone was already assumed to be a "theologian?" Everyone of us is, in fact, a theologian whether we like it or not. We can ignore that calling in our lives and defer to a pastor or a theologian to do our thinking for us, but I would argue that that is unbiblical and just plain wrong. The priesthood of all believers, the communion of saints, the ekklesia (called out)...these are some descriptions of the church. To be more personal, I will use Wendell Berry as an example, and I'm sorry if it's getting old, but he is a farmer and a writer, a husband, father, grandfather, political activist, conservationist, and community voice of reason. None of those things are separate from the rest. I just read an article in which he says, when asked how his farming and writing are connected, (loosely quoting), "I write as a farmer, and I farm as a writer. I don't think there is any other way I could do it." I would say that is how we are to be both "theologians" and "businessmen." No one lives in a vacuum and no action is done independent of others. When I pass a homeless man on the street and fail to look him in the eye for fear of him asking me for money, I do that as a theologian and a student. When I rip off my customers by selling them things they don't need, I do that as a theologian and a businessman.

If we focus on pastors and their role in the community, I believe that lay empowerment is the key to a "good" church and a good pastor. A pastor must get into the nitty gritty parts of life and walk with people in it, helping them to be better theologians and businessmen at the same time. A good pastor doesn't sit in an ivory tower and dream of great sermons about the corporate life when he hasn't heard the cries of his flock. There is an obvious interdependency here: the church sustains the life of the pastor in order to create space for him to care for the flock in the best way he can. In many cases, I think pastors should be bi-vocational and have a job on top of pastoring, but this only seems to work in small churches where administrative and bureaucratic BS can stay at a minimum.

So what does all of this mean for those of us not going into pastoral ministry or full-time academic work? What do you go to church for? What do you see as your role, today, in leading the church? How can you be both a theologian and a businessman?

For those of us in or going into pastoral ministry, what might it look like to have a congregation who wasn't looking for information but rather to be shaped into the people of God? How do you encourage that?

How much theology should a businessman know?

Of all of the responses to the last post on homosexuality, only one really went the direction I was hoping to go. I attempted to use homosexuality as a topic to test our thought processes -- the way we search Scripture, examine our hearts, incorporate thoughts from experiences/scholars/etc. -- and Dan Morehead's comments addressed this process directly. If I may summarize points from Dan's post, he encouraged us to consider the breadth of Scripture, not just passages focusing on homosexuality, sex, or marriage; to recognize the scientific (and theological) complexity of an issue like homosexuality as biology does not always produce XX females and XY males; and to incorporate perspectives voiced by church fathers past.

Dan also recommended we read several different books as "it's not clear to me how much work Matthew or anyone one else here is willing to do to start asking difficult questions…Since I've already said why I think the kind of reasoning that has gone on here is weak and needs to be expanded, I'll wait to see if any expanding goes on. Otherwise, I'm not even sure we're playing the same game."

I would say that we are absolutely playing the same game -- that is what this blog is all about. It's not about right answers nearly as much as it is about the process of thinking through difficult issues. It's about playing the game, regardless of whether you are in Little League or the Majors. We can all learn from each other.

I have not read any of the recommended books nor do I honestly feel like I have a firm grasp on how "the sabbath, Job, or Jesus' parables contribute to [my] thinking?" I am in the middle of that journey and I hope we would all extend each other the grace to allow room for growth.

In pursuing that journey, I'd like to shift the focus off of homosexuality and onto our role as thinkers/contributors to the Great Conversation. My first reaction to a call to invest a significant amount of time reading books on any particular topic is defensiveness (that's the pride in me). I am a consultant (for 4 more weeks) and I work ~70 hours a week. I am also a husband. Maybe one day I will be a father. The time I invest into thinking about performance management, business process redesign, or the next date with Erica is time that I cannot spend reading/thinking about issues like the ones we discuss on this blog. I'm not trying to create a false dichotomy between secular and theological thinking -- I hope my relationship with Jesus would be fully integrated into everything I do -- I am simply communicating the struggle I fight with the finiteness of my own mind. Maybe you guys have the capacity to think on spiritual things while working on a complex spreadsheet or while leading a meeting. I have not reached that level of maturity.

The Gospel is a call to live a holistic life. That certainly requires businessmen and women to live their lives, both in and out of the workplace, knowing what they do and why they do it. But the modern business world is high-pressured, time-consuming, and fragmented. Exploring theology and having thoughtful answers to everyday issues can seem almost impossible to some of us who live life in the midst of spreadsheets and meetings. So how do we balance a call to business and a call to explore the depth and breadth of Christ-centered theology?

Or, put another way, how much business is a theologian called to know and how much theology is a businessman called to know? And for what purpose? I am not speaking theorectically -- this would be a very different conversation if all business (and theology for that matter) was Christ-centered -- I am asking for practical perspectives. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul alludes to the struggle of a married man remaining 100% devoted to Jesus -- "The married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided" -- yet marriage (Genesis 2, Matthew 19, 1 Corinthians 7, Ephesians 5), like work (Genesis 2, Ecclesiastes 3), is clearly a God-ordained institution.

For those of us who are not going to be professional theologians, pastors, or teachers, how do we navigate the dangerous and ambiguous theological and ethical roads that seem to be everywhere without taking shortcuts on the 'Purpose Driven Life' or the 'Your Best Life Now' highway?

How should we think through issues like homosexuality?

The conversation the past couple of weeks has been great. I hope though, as we have these discussions, we keep Ephesians 4:1-7 top of mind, particularly verses 3-4: "...with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." We all have the same God and we are all striving for Him, not to be right or win an argument.

So I want to continue the discussion on homosexuality but, first, I want to take step back. My primary hope in raising this topic honestly had nothing to do with homosexuality -- it was to point back to The Dude's post a few weeks ago. He outlined a few steps he follows in thinking through issues like this one:

1) Why do I hold this position (emotionally, intellectually, culturally, traditionally, and scripturally)?
2) How does the larger Biblical narrative (creation, fall, redemption, new-creation) influence this topic?
3) What do Scripture, my own experiences, and church tradition say in general terms about this topic?
4) Taking #1-3 into account, what might a thoughtful Christian response be?
5) What other areas of my life does this issue affect and need to be integrated with?

The problem with this approach is it takes too long. But don't we owe it to God, ourselves, and each other to take the time to really seek Truth? My hope is that we as Christians won't allow our view of Truth to be swayed by the shifting winds of politics or public opinion. But if we hope to withstand that pressure, we have to examine the foundation of our beliefs. Let's do that for homosexuality this week. I'll take a shot at answering The Dude's 5 questions for myself (as briefly as possible):

1) I grew up in the Bible Belt, going to two mega-churches both of which are actually fairly liberal for the Bible Belt, but I would say that my view of homosexuality was almost always just assumed: "It's wrong." I never had any interaction with nor even knew anyone who was gay (I do now, though). Then in college, I heard that the former pastor of my church was now teaching at a church in New York that the open practice of homosexuality was Biblically acceptable. I was confused and researched the sermons I could find and wrote my pastor to ask his opinion. I'm just now going back to revisit that process I started in college to determine why I believe what I believe.

2) When I look at the Creation story, I see God say "It is not good that man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18) and then proceed to create for Adam a female companion. Unfortunately, I know that we sinners twist every good thing God created for us. From the very beginning, God's intention was for "man [to] leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:24-25). But somehow, between that time of open and unashamed nakedness, we sexualized our relationships with women and even other men such that this gift of female companionship, of physical, emotional, and spiritual oneness, served little purpose beyond the gratification of fleeting lustful urges. Of course I trust in Jesus' promise to redeem us despite our perversion of this great gift and to restore His intended creation.

3) Ephesians 5:22-33 clearly outlines the intent for husbands and wives to reflect the relationship between Christ and the Church in marriage: "This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church" (v. 32). 1 Peter 3:1-7 also provides instruction for the husband/wife relationship saying "[show] honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life..." (v. 7). In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says "For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does" (v. 4). Paul wished that "all were as I myself am (single)" (v. 7) and even says, "To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion" (v. 8-9). He goes on to say, "The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided...I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord" (v. 32-35).

If I was to look purely at biology, it would be clear that heterosexual sex is the only natural means for procreation. Thus, any other form of sex is not natural. I believe this includes masturbation, homosexual sex, and many other perversions. Of course, heterosexual sex can be unGodly (casual sex, rape, incest, etc.), but it is natural and, biologically and spiritually, we must begin there.

4) I believe my response to this Scripture, my own experience with marriage, and the experiences of married men and women much wiser than me is to say marriage is an incredible gift from God that, like most of His Creation, was designed to point to Christ, not to satisfy man. The same is true of sex. Marriage and sex are gifts, not rights -- and, again, their purpose is Christ. Paul strongly encourages abstinence in 1 Corinthians 7 that our devotion to the Lord may be undivided. He explains to the Ephesians that marriage is a mysterious union that paints a living portrait of Christ's relationship with the Church. A man cannot be substituted for the woman in these verses. A male/male relationship fails to reflect Christ and the Church as marriage was intended to do. God created us in His image and I think few of us would debate the fact that God created male and female distinctly different (physically and emotionally). It is together, when male and female are one, that we reflect the full range of His character.

We have discussed "committed homosexual relationships" -- I would agree that these are possible -- but it is called friendship. I am confident that two homosexual men, two heterosexual men, or any combination thereof can have a committed, intimate friendship that does not involve sex. There are many examples of intimate relationships in the Bible (e.g., David and Jonathan, Jesus and Peter), but sex was designed, from the very beginning of Creation, for a man and woman to become one and, in so doing, understand Christ's love for us in a unique way. I feel like I need to reiterate my belief here -- sex is a gift from God but we must never mistake that gift as a right.

On a slightly different note, I feel I ought to address one comment a couple of weeks ago that noted Christ Himself never condemns homosexuality. I disagree. Condemnation of homosexuality may never have come from Jesus' physical mouth, but Old Testament Scripture is often cited as Jesus' words. Obviously Jesus, in His earthly form, was not yet alive so this is mysterious. The explanation is spiritual. John 1:1,14 says "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." Jesus is the Truth. Truth is a man, not a collection of verses. A pastor at our church once said we must take the “sum of Scripture” not “some of it.” Looking in a concordance and plucking verses – Old Testament or New – that include the word “homosexual” to develop a belief is spiritually irresponsible. As The Dude has laid out in this 5 step process, we must consider a lot of factors if we hope to truly understand the depth of our beliefs. Let's be careful not to discount Scripture outside of the Gospels. Jesus certainly didn't.

5) I think this issue is much, much more than a plank in a political platform. Personally, I need to be much more cognizant of my words and actions and how they convey my love for people regardless of sexual orientation. I need to be aware that, if there aren't gay people around me, there are probably people around me with gay people in their lives -- so I need to stop making "gay" jokes and stop saying "that's gay." I also need to think proactively about the ways I can love the gay people in my life. But, on a much broader scale, I need to encourage a Christ-centered view of intimacy with my wife and close friends. We need to build deep relationships based on prayer and Scripture and shared experiences and hopefully those relationships will stand in stark contrast to the lie that intimacy equals sex. We need to raise our kids in that environment and drive a deeper sociological shift back to a reverent understanding of sex's role in marriage and, spiritually, to understand its reflection of Jesus and the Church.

I'll close with a quote from The Dude's last post: "This process is not simple and I usually wrestle hard over this stuff. And I am convinced that faith is what allows me to come to any decision. Not certitude. Faith. Not that I'm right but rather that I am doing my best to follow the story of scripture and that it is OK for me to make a mistake."

What are your thoughts on this process? My comments?