Allen C. McSween, Jr. argues that the renewal of Reformed theology must begin not with theology itself but with a recovery of the awesome majesty of God, the conviction that gave rise to the tradition and that drove the reluctant Calvin into the work of reform.
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in the Church by Allen C. McSween, ur.
I have been asked to speak on the trenewal of Reformed theologyt! from the perspective of one who serves as the pastor of a church. From that point of view it seems clear to me that any significant renewal of Reformed theologyt must begin, not with theology itseif, but with a re- covery of the faith that gave rise to the Reformed theological tradi- of God. As I see it, there Is little or no possibtlity for the renewal of Reformed theology apart from the recovery of a vivid awareness of the majesty of God.
That is not a theological task. It is a pastoral task. It is a pre-theological task that must first be addressed, not by the academy, but by the church and its ministry. A gathering such as this hardiy needs to be reminded of the role which an overwhelming sense of the majesty of God played in the life of John Calvin. Recently, whtle preparing a sermon for Reformation Sunday, I read Caivin's account of his ttsudden conversiont In the preface to his com- mentary on the Psalms. I was struck by how often he referred to himself as a "timid, mi ld, and cowardly scholar." Unlike so many self-appointed Into the game't very much against his own inclinat tons.and personality. what overcame his personal reluctance and timidity was an overwhelming sense of the majesty of God. Calvin writes: Then I, who was by nature a man of the country and a lover of retreat I found became a public 1ecture room. when the one thing I craved was obscurity and leisure, God fastened upon me so many cords of various kinds that he never allowed me to remain quiet,,and in spite of my reluctance dragged me into the 1imelight.
ment, Calvin says, I was compelled, against my own wtll, to take again my former mind for me to refuse to meet even death for Its sake. But my timidity kept suggesting excuses of every color for refusing to put my shoulder again under so heavy a burden. However, the demand of duty and falth at length conquered, and I went back to the flock from which I had been driven away.. with how much grief, with how many tears, and in how great anxiety I went, God is my best witness.
96 First and foremost, the renewal of Reformed theology in our time depends on a recovery of an authentic sense of the majesty of God. But. such will not come easily in our day. Conditioned as we are by our cul- precious iittle respect left for anyone or anything tn our society. time we will not be able to recover a sense of the majesty of God in the same way Caivin experienced ft, but stiil it is something that we must. give our best efforts to recover if there is to be an authentic renewal of Reformed theology.
cannot be recovered mereiy by gimicks or tinkering with the mechanics of worship. It is not something that can be programmed or that we can create ourselves. But a sense of the majesty of God can be elicited. It can be welcomed. It comes through a serious and disciplined wrest- closely related to a sense of the wonder of iife and an awareness of the great mysteries in which our lives are grounded, sustained, and com- pleted. surely one of the most important tasks of Reformed pastors to- day is to heip peopie rediscover a sense of wonder in. 1ife and to iife. Deeper than all the problems we can solve or puzzles we can unravel are- the mysteries that the more we ponder, the deeper and more wonderful they become. A major part of preaching today is not to give answers, and never to give stmple answers to the perplexing ironies and antin- omies of 1ife, but to set before people the great and deep mysteries of 1ife in creation. we can and must labor to elicit a.sense of wonder. than the sterile secularism that would reduce the great mysteries of 1ife to the one-dimensional trivialities of mass culture. As an interesting aside, it is beginning to appear that television may be a strange aily in this task. The irony of the matter is that the mindlessness of so much programming on television is leading to a back- contact. A good many people I know are getting fed up with the mind- lessness and the manipulations of television and are eager for that which the Reformed tradition has always sought to offer——— thoughtful preaching that both illumines the mind and moves the heart, and faithful pastoral care in a community of faith.
II That leads us to a second matter which is needed in a renewal of Reformed theology, and that is a recovery of the dlstinctive life of the Issues of ecclesioiogy need to be high on the Christian..congregat ion.
been so comfortabiy and securely established as a part of upper-middle class American culture, is being forced to rethink what it means to be distinctively the church of Jesus Christ. The integrity of the church Is very much at stake today. Over against the ailuring seductions of ideologies of both the rlght and the left Cand middle, too, I suppose
97 should be added), the church must struggle with what it means to be faithful to its own distinctive agenda and vocation as a witness to the majesty and grace of God, made known decisively in uesus cChrist. The church is not called to ttiord it overt the world. It is not called to ittransform the worid,t as if it possibly could. The church ts cailed to bear witness, without anxlety and without coercion, to what God has done, is doing, and wiil brlng to completion In uesus christ. The for other ideologies or as a ruler over otners.
On the rmost practical level, this concern for the recovery of the distinctiveness and integrity of 'the church invoives a kind of working congregationalism.'t I know that in saying that I may be playing into the hands of the congregationalism that is so much a part of the reli- alternative to a healthy concern for the iife of the particular congre- gation in which by.the provtdence of God our 1ives are set. Despite all that may be said against creeping congregationalism,tt the reality is that the fundamental unit of mission in the church is and.always has been the congregation, the fellowship of believers. we who are ordained and instailed as pastors must give the majority of our time to seeking to buiid up the community of faith. That is much harder and much more threatening than running off to meetings tto run the church,tt but the 1ife of the church depends, as it always has, on the renewal of congre- gat.ions as vital centers of Christtan faith, devotion, and practice. The church will not be renewed by utopian dreams: and idealistic visions.. It wtil be renewed by those who care enough.to work' at bui1d- Ing up particular conmunities of faith. wtii wiiiimon, in his book what's Right with the Church, calls our attention to words from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together that speak with particular significance to our situatton today: banished tf genuine communtty is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Chrtstian community itseif becames a destroyer.
God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that lt be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the cammunity of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God himself accordingly.
... He acts as if he is a creator of the Christian community, as ff his dream binds men together. when things do not go his way, he calis the effort a fatlure.
when his tdeal picture is destroyed, he accuser of his brethren, than an, accuser of God, and finaliy To that willimon adds, tThe church ls not reformed by idealists and. romantics. It is formed by,realists who know that commitment to Christ must be.realisticaiiy embodied if it is to be faithful to the way of Christ himself.
98 Such concrete formation of the community of falth requires that pastors and officers engage in the practical tasks necessary for build- ing and sustaining the fel1owship of believers, namely, a serlous study of scripture throughout the 1ife of the church, responsible preaching week in and week out, faithful pastoral care and caring, and the dedi- cated passing on of faith and understanding to new generations of God's people. Those tasks are not as glamorous as ttenvisioning the futurett or changing the worid,tt but they are what build the Body of Christ, which theology.
closely related to the rediscovery of the distinctiveness and in- tegrity of the church are a whole serjes of complex and difficult fssues in the relationship between church and state, Chrlst and culture. A re- newal of Reformed theology wil1 necessartly involve a serious considera tion of the Reformed way of being the church, a way which combines elements both from the churchiytt and the 'sectariantt traditions. The Reformed tradition has.walked a middle way between the extremes of radi- cal withdrawal from the world and complete accommodation to the values and power systems of the world. Obviously, we American Presbyterians come very close to the pole of cultural accommodatlon. Many of us are Yet we are very comfortable with our upper-middle class orientation. being forced both by fellow christians and by the gospel itself to re- think our relationship to American culture..
(As an aside, a future Caivin Colloquium couid profitably focus on this whole issue of church——— of church-state relationships is the integrity of the church. The church must continualiy be on guard against the ldeologlcal capttvity of all powers and authorities that would seek to seize it or seduce it into their own service. A major contribution the Reformed tradition can make to this whoile concern' is its emphasis on the church as an intentional The church of faith community that cares about the whole of life. Caivyin is one that ts clear about its own unigue identity and which out compassionate purposes of God.
1II.This brings us to a more specifically theoiogical issue that is in- volved in the renewal of Reformed theology today, and that is a recon- sideration. of POwER. To speak of the sovereignty of God, as our tradi- tion has so emphaticaliy, is to speak.of power, its nature and use. God we have used the image of Caesar on the throne instead of Christ on the cross.
we have understood power as intimidation, the abiitty to force one's will on others. such a view of power is clearly not what is seen tn the cross, which as Paul insists is both the twisdom and power of God.'t A reconsideratlon of power in the 1ight of the cross would lead us away from the sovereignty of force and intimidation to the sovereignty of a love that ls vulnerable yet invincible, tender yet triumphant. As I see It, the sovereignty of God is best understood in terms of the winsomeness of love, the persuasiveness of truth, the effi——— cacy of grace, not the coerciveness of force. such an understanding of
99 God's power has very important ramifications for our understanding of human power and its proper use. what is all too clear in the politics and polity of our church today is that we are still operating on the Caesarist view of power. we stti are fundamentally concerned to win temporary majorities for our positions. In a system inot designed to work without trust and love,tt we continually try to win out over each otner and then wonder why the church is so fragmented and ineffective. If we really belteved tn the majesty of truth and the ultimate invinci- bility of grace, our life together would take a very different shape under the rule of grace.
To sum up, I would suggest that the renewal of Reformed theology in the church today invoives: ——— the recovery of a vivid and compelling awareness of the majesty of God, which 1s more important than all our self-promotion——— out of which comes courage; of which comes reverence, humi1ity, and worshipi in tasks of caring for real people in the real world, not by utopian dreams——— out of which comes integrity of witness; ——— a renewed sense of community in the church in which mutuai ser- vice and upbuilding are more important than short-term pol itical victo- ries over one another——— out of which comes wholeness and reconciliatlon; ——— a renewed understanding of power, understood ir terms of the win- someness of love, the persuasion of truth, and the efficacy of grace, not intimidation——— out of which comes effectiveness in mission without arrogance; of faith——— out of which alone comes the transformation of character that enabiles us to be isalt and 1ightit in the world Christ loves and even now and 'even through us is redeeming according to his own purposes. Notes Calvin: Commentaries, vol. xxIlI in The Library of Christian Classics (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, p. 52). 2Ibid., p. 54.
'Quoted in wi 1I iam H. wi1limon, what's Right with the Church (san Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985), p. 26. From Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans. J. w. Doberstein (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954), pp. 27-28.
Ib1d., p. 26.