Abstract
Keith Johnson addresses a problem often encountered by teachers of theology: students fail to see the relationship between the practice of the faith and the study of theology as an academic subject. Johnson traces this contemporary problem to Schleiermacher’s casting of the place of theology in the modern university. To correct it—that is, to ‘rebuild’ the discipline of theology—he turns to heavyweights like Augustine, Calvin, and Barth. This reconstruction sounds more like restoration than innovation, as Johnson insists that theology begins from faith in Jesus Christ and then seeks understanding within academic standards of excellence. Throughout the seven chapters, he stays close to the Bible, offering Scripture as the crucial source and standard for theological work. The theologian-as-disciple endeavours to take every thought captive to Christ, not just for herself, but for the whole church. We need words to express what we believe about God, yet all our words fall short; so we need theologians to ‘think after Christ’, carefully examining Christian thought in light of the Scripture, always cognizant of the effects of sin and the danger of idolatry. Johnson explains that ‘our primary task as theologians is to bring the meaning of the words we have for God into conformity with Christ’ (p. 81). He draws a very good example of how theologians do this, and how they work with Scripture in so doing, from Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana (pp. 111–115). Johnson concludes with a set of nine characteristics the theologian-as-disciple will display, which centre on humility and the theologian’s service within the community of disciples.
Theology as Discipleship provides a helpful account of the necessity of theology and its relationship to the practice of Christian faith for students from Evangelical backgrounds. Johnson presents the pursuit of theology in an academic setting as entirely consistent with, and even an asset to, a life of serious Christian discipleship.
Yet, although he insists that ‘we make a mistake if we think our task as theologians is to create a system that removes all mystery, erases all doubt, and answers every doctrinal question’, there persists a sense that we can be certain about which doubts remain and which questions must go unanswered. To say that ‘It is inevitable that some members will not hear and understand [God’s] revelation in Scripture rightly or completely’ is very different from admitting that all of us hear and understand that revelation ambiguously and incompletely. That is a point that any teacher of theology who uses this book will need to make very clear.