Theology as Autobiography: Looking at the World Through My Lens
by Reinder Bruinsma | 4 September 2024 |
I have nearly finished reading the most recent book of Professor Stefan Paas. He teaches systematic theology and mission studies at the Free University in Amsterdam. Most of his writing is in the Dutch language. (This book is Dutch, though I would not be surprised if there will soon be an English edition.) Translated into English, the title of the book is Peace on Earth, and the subtitle: Salvation and Redemption in our Present Age.
Dr. Paas addresses the question of how the good news of salvation can effectively “land” in today’s world with all its diversity and plurality. The book is informative and inspiring, but the introduction (some 50 pages) especially drew my attention.
The author starts out by telling us about his own faith journey. He was born into a family that belonged to one of the smaller conservative Calvinist denominations, which since the nineteenth century have “enriched” the Dutch religious landscape. The church in which Paas grew up represents a kind of Calvinism that places great emphasis on the emotional and experiential aspects of the Christian faith. Its overriding concern is to have full assurance of salvation. To acquire the certainty of being saved, one must have unambiguous proof of being converted. It is a kind of religious experience that is very similar to that of nineteenth-century Pietism that had many followers in Germany and other European regions.
Stefan Paas underwent a “conversion-drama,” as he calls it, when he was eighteen. One evening he felt that something dramatic needed to happen with him. He opened his Bible and read Romans 2:4, where the apostle Paul tells his readers that it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance and conversion. It struck him like a bolt of lightning. Conversion does not result from a fear of divine judgment, but from God’s goodness! Suddenly he was completely sure: God is with me!
Paas did not stay with the conservative denomination in which he grew up, but eventually found that the mainline Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) was a better spiritual fit for him. This is the largest Protestant denomination in the Netherlands, that has wings (“modalities”) that vary from quite liberal to quite conservative, with most members (including Paas) somewhere in between.
His theology remains basically Calvinistic, but there are elements that betray his more orthodox religious roots, as well as facets that reflect a more evangelical orientation.
Theology as autobiographical
Paas does not look down on his pietistic upbringing. He recognizes that it will always remain part of who he is. When he looks at the spiritual home of his childhood years, he does so through the lens of its particular Calvinistic background, with its emphasis on religious experience and emotion. He has in many respects distanced himself from it, but it remains an integral part of the lens through which he looks at his own past and at society around him.
We may see things which in retrospect we do not like Paas opines, but we must refrain from spitting in the pond from which we drink. His own religious journey inevitably still colors his approach to theology. The way we “do” theology, he maintains, is always embedded in a certain tradition and a particular context, and is to some extent also shaped by one’s personality.
In other words, theology is always, at least to some extent, autobiographical. The core of the good news is that God comes to us and reveals Himself to us. But, so Paas argues, God can only meet us in the domain of our own experience since every religious experience is received through our social, cultural, and religious conditioning.
There are no fully neutral religious views. They always come from somewhere.
I quote: “We meet God as cultural beings, in and with and under our experiences” (p. 36). While this is an important point of departure in thinking about our faith, we must at the same time be careful not to restrict faith and salvation to our own personal experiences or to fully identify these with one particular tradition or denomination. “In our doing theology, we must avoid locking God up in our own experiences or to completely identify God with them.”
There are many similarities between the religious context in which Stefan Paas grew up and the Adventist milieu of my youth and adolescence, and also between the religious journeys many of us have traveled as we matured, studied theology, and became ourselves active theologians. I have not, unlike Paas, transferred to another denomination as my spiritual home. But I have, like Paas, consistently looked for the space I needed as my approach to various Adventist doctrines and cultural idiosyncrasies changed.
Thus, my way of looking at Adventism and at the world around me inevitably happened through the lens of my Adventist background.
The Adventism of my parents, which they absorbed in the 1940s in the Netherlands, was the basis for my Adventism as I went through children’s Sabbath School and attended our small 25-member church. It was a European variety of Adventism. One might even say a German variety of Adventism, since many of the pastors came from, or had studied in, Germany. Moreover, until World War II the church in the Netherlands was an administrative unit of the German Adventist Church. Our Adventism had definite Calvinist traits. The do’s and don’ts of Sabbath activities were strikingly similar to the do’s and don’ts of my Sundaykeeping friends and classmates.
My Adventism was, of course, further informed by my college and university studies of theology and, later, by my work for the denomination in various countries and different assignments. It was also shaped by the books I read and the books I wrote. And by the joys as well as the griefs that came my way as life unfolded. All of this formed the lens through which I look at my faith and at my church: the local congregation to which I belong, the church in my country, and the worldwide Adventist movement.
My lens
Some may not like that I admit the subjective aspect of what I see when I look through the lens of my personal history and experiences. Truth, they say, is objective. God reveals His Truth to us if we open ourselves up to what He wants to tell us. There is but one lens through which we must look at our own church and at the religious and secular world around us, they will say: namely, the Bible—the “plain” Word of God. We must therefore do away with our personal lens, or at the very least carefully clean it so that what we see is not clouded by any dirt and dust that has stuck to it.
Yes, metaphors have their limitations. Whether or not we can adjust the focus of our lens, change its color, or can find an effective cleaning agent for it may remain open to debate. However, one basic point is not subject to any doubt: We cannot do away with our lens. A lot of misunderstanding, even controversy and misery, has resulted from an inability or unwillingness to accept this fact. Insisting that we must—and can—do away with our personal lens, or must all look through an identical (General Conference-prescribed) lens, carries the danger that we transform our faith community into a cult, rather than nurturing it as a living organism.
I have no other lens than the one life has given me. I cannot look at the world as an unbeliever. Yes, I can try to understand the characteristics of the secular and postmodern worldview, but even though I might share in some of these features, in the final analysis I cannot put my faith on hold. I may have changed in the way I formulate and practice my faith, but I remain a believer.
I have studied other religions and the various forms of Christianity. But I cannot look at things through a Muslim lens, or through the lens of a Roman Catholic or Methodist believer. A particular variety of Adventism has shaped my life and my thinking. It has kept me from doing certain things and led me to a particular lifestyle and approach to culture. It has played a role in my selection of friends, and in my choice of profession. I cannot simply decide to jettison my lens.
The three angels lens
The recognition that we all look at things through our own lens has fundamental implications for the way in which we share our faith with people in our own culture and, even more so, with men and women in other parts of the western and non-western world. The good news can only reach them if it is brought to them in a credible, authentic way. This means, first of all, that we can only hope to be true and effective bearers of the good news if we ourselves truly believe in the message we seek to convey.
This is, I suggest, a major challenge in today’s mission outreach of the Adventist Church, particularly when it concerns major segments of the church in the western world. The world church pushes evangelistic initiatives in which the three angels’ messages are the ever-recurring theme, and in which the good news of the gospel tends to be presented as a tightly packaged collection of doctrines. There is, it seems, just one particular lens through which all church members are expected to look at the collective missionary task. They are urged to respond to the General Conference’s call for “total member involvement” with a distinct “I will go,” and then all march in the same direction and with the same luggage.
For many this will not work, because they find it impossible to look through a lens that is not theirs. Meanwhile their own lens is not respected.
The lens that others see through
The good news can only “land” if it can register with those we seek to reach. Other people have their own lens. They can only “see” the world from their own historical, cultural, and religious perspective. And they can only look at the Christian faith from within the contours of their own cultural world. When this is not, or insufficiently, recognized, the mission outreach will in many cases result in a blend of Adventist values with traditional beliefs and customs, or in a kind of Adventism that reflects a western-style Adventism that does not really speak to the soul of the converts.
When witnessing our faith we must always be mindful that God speaks to human beings in the context of where they are. This is God’s magnanimous act of grace. If we want to be credible and authentic “missionaries” we must follow the example of our Incarnate Lord. As a first-century Jewish male He entered a unique religious and political environment, adapting His approach to the different audiences that were part of His world. He did so in a perfect manner, relating to us from His unique divine-human perspective.
Our human perspective is fundamentally affected by our history and context. It may be flawed, but it is the only point from which we can look at our church and at the world around us. It is the absolute condition for sharing the good news in a credible way. Our message will only “land” in our “mission fields,” far and near, if we succeed in connecting with the context of the recipients and recognize that they are entitled to their own lens when they look at us and our church and the message we seek to convey.
Reinder Bruinsma lives in the Netherlands with his wife, Aafje. He has served the Adventist Church in various assignments in publishing, education, and church administration on three continents. He still maintains a busy schedule of preaching, teaching, and writing. He writes at http://reinderbruinsma.com/.
