Beth Felker Jones: Practicing Christian Doctrine, 2nd edition, 2024
Christian theology is a conversation about Scripture: about how to read and interpret it better, about how to understand the Bible as a whole and imagine a way of life that is faithful to the God whose Word it is. This conversation produces distinct Christian teachings, called doctrine. But the work of theology does not end there. In the story of King Josiah (2 Chron.: 34), when he discovered the book of scripture in the ruins of the Temple, he had it read to his people, but then moved directly from teaching to action. He connected belief with practice, the Word of God with reform, and led the people to join him as he sought faithfulness to the true God.
In our world, the word doctrine had taken on cold, hard connotations. Many assume that it is about rigidity and control or that it points to an inaccessible arena of knowledge outside the reach of ordinary Christians. I hope this book works to rehabilitate the word doctrine, to show ways that good Christian teaching can help us to grow in faith, reach out in love, and look to the future in hope. To practice doctrine is to yearn for a deeper understanding of the Christian faith, to seek the logic and beauty of that faith, and to live out what we have learned in the daily realities of the Christian life.
All of that becomes richer as we gain familiarity with Christian teaching. Learning Christian doctrine is something like learning a new language: it takes time to learn the vocabulary and concepts used. Students must also immerse themselves in the teachings of Scripture, listen to the wisdom of other practitioners, and pray for the insight and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Some doctrines will be easy to learn, some concepts may lead to “aha!” moments. At other times the study of doctrine will challenge our assumptions and preconceptions. Some of God’s greatest gifts can come when we experience a disconnect between our assumptions and what we learn through study.
None of us has our doctrine exactly right, and as we search for the truth that comes from God, we must also search for the humility to see where we might be wrong. The practice of doctrine will be more fruitful if we are open to change and reform. While no two theologians will ever introduce doctrine in precisely the same way, Christians share a great deal in common and this book is focused on that common ground as surveyed in evangelical and ecumenical perspective. There is a fairly standard list of doctrines: revelation and Scripture, God, creation, human beings, Jesus, salvation, the Holy Spirit, the church, and final Christian hope.
Revelation/Scripture reveals God’s self to us. General revelation typically refers to God’s self-disclosure in creation and the human conscience. Special revelation refers to God’s specific self-revelation in the history of Israel, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and Scripture. This is one of the easiest doctrines to put into daily practice, because the practice begins with reading and studying God’s Word. If we put ourselves in its path – reading, listening, meditating – it will bring truth to light and work to make us new.
God/Trinity. In the first centuries after Jesus’ resurrection, Christians needed to make sense of the new things God had done in Jesus Christ. For generations, Israel had been taught that God was ‘One,’ alone. Now Jesus’ followers were calling him ‘Lord,’ the name reserved for the Almighty. Could they both be God? Wouldn’t that be idolatry, a sin Israel had struggled with throughout its long history? But early Christians remembered what happened when Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan. As he was coming out of the water, “the heavens were torn apart, and the Spirit descended like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” The heart of this doctrine is about who we worship, and there is nothing more wonderful, life-giving or joyous than to worship the true and living God.
Creation/Providence. The doctrine of creation is about the dependence of all things on the triune God. It begins with the character of the God who is Creator and who made and loves and sustains all that is. God is not one of the things in this world, and so our doctrine will have to account for the unfathomable difference between it and God. Yet, this same God who is not of this world is intimately involved in it. Creation depends on God for its ongoing existence at every moment. Our doctrine has to be about the relationship between creation and Creator, a personal relationship with a personal Creator. God loves all of creation and calls it ‘good’ – including our bodies. Christian tradition recognizes that body practices – such as establishing rhythms of feasting and fasting: paying attention to postures (kneeling or standing in prayer,) and practicing sexual faithfulness – are important to the spiritual life, to training body-soul persons as faithful image bearers.
Human Beings (Theological Anthropology) When Christian theologians talk about human beings, we do so in terms of our relationship to God. Our job as theological anthropologists is to describe not a slice of humanity – as cultural anthropologists do – but all of it and to do so in light of humanity’s relationship with God, seeking to understand humanity both as God intends it to be and as it actually is – and the two are often very different. To know what it means to be human, we must know what it means to be created in the “image of God.” We take humanity seriously because God takes it seriously – seriously enough to become human in the person of Jesus Christ. We must also take human sin seriously, accounting for the distortion and twisting of human nature under the conditions of sin. We practice theological anthropology when we ask God to transform our lives here and now into a foretaste of what we will become as our lives begin to be transformed into the likeness of Christ.
Jesus Christ (Christology) The image of God is a person, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, the living, personal center of Christian faith. Jesus is also the eternal God, the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit. He has shown us who he is by coming in the flesh as one of us. He has shown us his person in words and action and, most tellingly, by giving himself us to death on the cross. He is the person who gives Christian faith shape and identity. Studying who Jesus is – Christology - helps us to know Jesus more, to learn his identity, and to deepen our relationships with the living Lord. The practice of this doctrine is not about moralism and is not just about following in his footsteps. Those actions are incomplete unless we are transformed and empowered by Christ’s own work.
Salvation (Soteriology) In practicing soteriology, we attend to the interconnections between who Jesus is and what he has done, especially in the cross and resurrection, to bring about salvation. This is an area where we see wide variety – including disagreement – across different theological traditions, but this does not mean there is no recognizable Christian center. Christ’s saving work is as bountiful as Christ Jesus himself. Biblical images of rescue, healing, redemption, ransom, freedom, forgiveness, reconciliation, adoption and peace - all describe reconciliation between God and humans. It also reconciles humans with other spiritual forces, with one another, and with the whole created order. In practice, the doctrine of salvation is richest when we attend to and appreciate its range of treasures.
The Holy Spirit (Pneumatology) We can learn certain habits in the doctrine of the Spirit. We learn the habit of confidence in the Spirit’s presence and power which allows us to live in the world with strength, courage, purpose, and hope. We learn to adopt postures of truth and interdependence as we grow used to working with the Spirit. Instead of relying on our own power, we learn to trust the power of the Spirit who dwells within us. We learn to open our hands to the church and the world, asking the Spirit to direct our gifts toward the church community and toward the world in need. We do not practice pneumatology alone. We do so as those who are in the Spirit’s power, filled by the Spirit and being made holy under the direction of the Spirit who is God.
One Church (Ecclesiology) As we practice ecclesiology, we learn to live faithfully in light of two competing realities. First, the visible church matters, and second, there is no pristine church. The first reality is doctrinal. Given that bodies and materiality are good things made and loved by God, we cannot advance a gnostic agenda, one that would confine the church to the realm of the invisible and spiritual. How can the church make the grace of God known if that church cannot be seen and touched? The second reality is not to deny the church’s brokenness. The search for a pristine church is bound to fail. History testifies to that. But God is powerful enough to create visible unity in the church even in the midst of brokenness. Without honesty about our brokenness, our witness to grace is impossible.
Resurrection Hope. (Eschatology). Death is horrible and God is with us as we face that horror. The practice of eschatology is to tell the truth about death. Paul encourages Christians to claim the hope of the resurrection, not so we will not grieve at the loss of our loved ones, but so ours will not be the hopeless grief of those who do not know resurrection power (1 Cor.:15). The practice of eschatology is to know death for what it is: an enemy, a consequence of sin, outside of God’s good, creative intentions for us. It is, more importantly, to live in God’s resurrection triumph over that enemy. Resurrection is about hope for bodies - bodies and souls in unity. Bodies are not disposable nor pointless or wicked. They are the very stuff of resurrection.
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Beth Felker Jones (Ph.D., Duke University) is professor of theology at Northern Seminary and the author of numerous books.
Coming Next: Christopher Hays/Christopher Ansberry: Toward a Faithful Criticism - Evangelical Faith and the Challenge of Historical Criticism (2013)