On Cultivating a Transgressive Theological Imagination

While doing archival research for my part of a book on the history of practical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, I came across very disturbing evidence for a fundamental failure of theological imagination on the part of seminary faculty during the nineteenth century. On the vexed matters of slavery and race, every faculty member at PTS who taught anything about practical theology until nearly the end of the 1800s could not imagine a society in which African Americans and Euro-Americans could live together as equals. A rigid Westminster orthodoxy undergirded with Scottish Common Sense philosophy constrained their interpretation of Scripture as well as their theological imagination in very unfortunate ways. While they all agreed that slavery as an institution was a blight upon humanity, not one of them could or would condemn it outright because of the way they read several texts in the Pauline corpus (none of which explicitly condemned slavery). As a result, they believed and taught generations of future pastors that they should leave politics to the politicians, that slaves should be taught to read in order that they might be able to read Scripture as an aid to salvation, and that slave owners should be admonished to treat slaves humanely, and that freed slaves should be sent en masse to colonize Liberia. Their theological imagination, underdeveloped as it was, can be seen in the admonitions concerning Liberia. Sending freed slaves back to Africa would, so they thought, address multiple problems. It would solve the race problem in the United States by removing black slaves and former slaves from society. They also thought it would contribute greatly to the evangelism challenge of the Great Commission by having people of African descent—whom they argued were constitutionally more adapted to survival on the African continent than were Euro-American missionaries—preaching the gospel to Africans. Astonishingly, even as late as 1877 (14 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 12 years after the end of the Civil War) the one practical theologian on the seminary’s faculty still held to this line of thinking and articulated it before the American Colonization Society. ¹ Though there were voices like Marcus Garvey and James Theodore Holly—supporters of Black nationalism—who believed that former slaves would have more independence and greater opportunities in Africa, these were not the arguments employed by PTS faculty. How did it come about that some of the greatest Reformed leaders in nineteenth-century America failed to develop theological imagination that transgressed the sinful and dehumanizing parameters of their cultural context? Though the Princeton Seminary faculty members of the nineteenth century aimed to be moderates in their context (between the pro-slavery Presbyterians of the South and the firebrand abolitionists of the North), their ideas on slavery and race from our twenty-first century vantage point positively shocks the conscience.

Upon reflection, two issues continually press upon me. One has to do with the way future generations will evaluate us and our theological commitments. The other with how to cultivate a broader, more dynamic, and more transgressive theological imagination now. With respect to contemporary failures, my study of the history of practical theology at PTS leads me to conclude that it is a virtual certainty that we now hold theological positions on particular issues that later generations will see all too clearly as abject failures of theological imagination. To be sure, there is a certain inevitability about this. After all, theologians function in particular times, places, and cultural environments. No one has a God’s-eye point of view on anything, let alone theological matters. Said another way, we can neither escape nor somehow transcend the finitude of our point of view. One remedy for this is, with Karl Barth, to hold all of our theological formulations as provisional, open to revision, and to recognize that they will be to some extent sinful. This assertion of the hermeneutical facticity of our theological work does not, however, excuse us from responsibility and accountability. While it is very difficult to see one’s own limitations and taken-for-granted assumptions, we can at least make a good faith effort at critical reflectivity and self-criticism. Princeton Seminary faculty who refused to condemn slavery in the nineteenth century cannot be excused simply because they lived in a different era. They should have understood then what we know with certainty now: slavery and racism of any kind are condemned by the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can’t wait for future generations to tell us we are on the wrong track; we need to look critically at ourselves now in light of the Gospel. The other remedy involves active cultivation of a transgressive theological imagination.

How is it possible to think theologically in a way that does not simply mirror the prevailing cultural thought forms and themes of the day? This is easier said than done. Even nineteenth-century Princeton Theological Seminary faculty members like Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller, and J.W. Alexander taught generations of students that they should embrace a certain kind of Christian humanism marked by wide reading in the best literature available and knowledge of the latest developments in the sciences. They believed that cultivating the imagination through engagement with the best of the arts and sciences would sharpen the ability to read, understand, interpret, and apply Scripture. Sound and time-tested advice indeed. The problem is that it may not go far enough, particularly if one is primarily motivated to engage the arts and sciences in order solely to find corroborative justification for the theological beliefs that one already holds. Anchored firmly in core matters of Christian belief and practice—the Trinity, two-natures christology, justification by grace through faith, among others—we may well need to go beyond merely looking for reinforcing evidence for what we already hold to be true. We need to be open to having our field of vision stretched and our assumptions challenged. Often this will mean seeing familiar convictions from new angles. Sometimes, it will lead to fundamental rethinking of those convictions.

How might one cultivate a theological imagination sufficient to transgress the cultural norms and limitations of one’s contemporary context? Engagement with discoveries in the sciences can definitely stimulate the imagination, but there is nothing like the arts for developing a lively and supple—not to mention transgressive—imagination. Searching out and spending time with narratives fiction and nonfiction alike that give expression to human experience far different from one’s own will certainly aid the process of developing theological imagination. Yet, why limit oneself to writing? The visual and performing arts offer seemingly limitless possibilities for engaging self, others, the world, and even the transcendent in fresh and generative ways—especially if those arts represent a rich variety of cultural perspectives. Reflective participation in social media will also open up new imaginative possibilities—both through the content of what one discovers and through the very process of such discovery itself. As early and medieval Christians plumbed the possibilities and limits afforded by Greco-Roman perspectives shot through with non-Christian religious beliefs and stories, so our contemporary theological imagination can find abundant stimulus by engaging the world’s religions. Perhaps a wide surface exposure combined with depth soundings around questions or issues of passionate interest would provoke the development of theological imagination.

Efforts to cultivate a dynamic and appropriately transgressive theological imagination can receive further assistance from a method of teaching known as Synectics. Developed in 1961 by William J. Gordon and his associates, this method of teaching can either “make the strange familiar” or, conversely, “make the familiar strange” through a disciplined multi-phased process. ² This method for generating imaginative insight has had a remarkable track record in helping people to break out of their assumed frames of reference through whimsical, yet disciplined play with analogy and metaphor. It is just the kind of process that could lead one to develop the contemporary equivalents of such culturally transgressive theological insights as Good Samaritans, camels that can go through the eye of a needle, and workers in the vineyard who start at different hours but receive the same pay.

We are sure to hold to numerous beliefs and practices that will make future generations find us wanting. But we don’t have to wait for their judgment. We can look at how well (or poorly) we seek to combat racism now, how adequately (or inadequately) we cultivate a sense of Christian vocation equally in women and men, whether or not we are nurturing and protecting God’s good earth and know now that there is much to be done. We can find numerous ways to hold to what is good—the gospel of Jesus Christ—and thereby call into question existing societal norms and assumptions in service to the future into which God calls all of us.