Pastor-Scholar To Professor-Scholar: Exploring The Theological Disconnect Between The Academy And The Local Church

By Gerald L. Hiestand

[Gerald Hiestand is a Pastor of Adult Ministries at Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows, Ill., and president of the Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology.]

I. Introduction: The Theological Disconnect Between the Academy and the Local Church

I was meeting with an associate pastor of a large metropolitan church when he leaned in a bit and lowered his voice, “The fact is, they’re not real big on the seminary around here. You can sometimes get the impression they’d rather hire guys straight out of the market place. We’ve just seen too many young guys coming out of the academy, able to parse Greek verbs and discuss process theology, but having no real idea what the church is about.” His comments, though unsettling, did not come as a shock. Since the inception of the evangelical seminary—beginning with Andover in 1808 and followed by Princeton in 1812—pastors, laity, and professors alike have long lamented the disconnect between “academic” scholarship and the theological needs of ecclesial minis-try.[1] Simply put, the theology coming out of the academy is often not viewed by practitioners and parishioners as particularly relevant or necessary for ecclesial ministry.[2] Though often overstated, this unfavorable assessment of academic theology has been difficult to shake.[3]

Alister McGrath, in a recent work on the future of evangelical theology, discusses this theological disconnect. Recounting his personal experience with the occasional irrelevance of academic theology, he writes,

I recall an occasion back in the 1970s when a leading British theologian gave an address to a group of us who were preparing for ministry in the Church of England.... He related how he regularly had to visit little old ladies in his parish, and was obliged to converse with them over cups of lukewarm overbrewed tea. We all politely tittered (as we were clearly meant to) at the thought of such an immensely distinguished theologian having to suffer the indignity of talking with little old ladies whose subject of conversation was grandchildren, the price of groceries and the pains of old age. After his lecture, we wished he had spent rather more time with these people. The bulk of his lecture was unintelligible, and made no connections with real life—the issues of relationships, the cost of living, and the pain of the world. It was academic in the worst possible sense of the word.[4]

Though McGrath is speaking here of a specifically British context, his comments have application to North American evangelicalism. Evangelical theology in North America, he notes, despite its pragmatic bent, has not escaped the accusation that it is too far removed from the “real needs” of the local church. Rightly or wrongly—and surely it is a little of both—much of the North American evangelical laity, and many of its practitioners, perceive, like their British counterparts, that “much recent theology seems to focus on issues which appear to be an utter irrelevance to the life, worship and mission of the church.”[5]

Perhaps even more disturbing, the chronic propensity to minimize the value of academic theology seems to extend beyond the laity. Prospective ministers trained within the evangelical academy often show little ability or desire to incorporate a well-formed evangelical theology into their ecclesial duties. Drawing from a study done in 1993, David Wells has argued that a growing number of seminarians give lip service to evangelical doctrines, but see little need for critical reflection upon those doctrines, nor understand how to incorporate them into the fabric of local church ministry.6 Wells writes, “While the doctrinal substance of theology has been taught and is believed by the students, seeing the reality of that doctrinal truth, both internally and in the contemporary world was, despite their good intentions, largely lost on these students.”[7] Not only does our theology often fail to impact the lives of our parishioners, but, according to Wells, it is being lost on much of our clergy as well.

Though many evangelical theologians such as McGrath suppose that Wells has “overstated his case,”[8] his assessment is not entirely off the mark. My own time in pastoral ministry anecdotally supports the basic tenor of Wells’s conclusion. Likewise, McGrath acknowledges that “a large section of the [North American] evangelical movement has not seen sustained theological engagement as a pressing priority.”[9] Whether alarmed like Wells, or simply concerned like McGrath, most evangelical theologians acknowledge there is a large segment of wider evangelicalism, consisting of both pastors and laity, that does not appreciate or value the contributions of our academic theologians. In many circles, theological sophistication has become synonymous with theological irrelevancy.

Yet those of us who share a concern for theological reflection understand the significant, indeed necessary, role theology plays in the life of evangelicalism. But why this persistent (and perhaps growing) disconnect between the academy and the local church? Why such disregard for the theological contributions of our seminaries? Does the blame lie chiefly at the feet of external factors such as cultural trends or the pragmatic bent of North American evangelicalism? Or is there something inherent within evangelical theology itself that is perpetuating this nagging dilemma? McGrath, I believe, gets to the heart of the issue when he writes,

If evangelicalism has marginalized academic theology, the problem lies at least in part with that theology itself, which has failed to ensure that it understands for itself, let alone communicates to others, its distinctive role within the evangelical community. Theology cannot expect evangelicals to assume that it possesses relevance, given the widespread contempt for academic theology within the church at large. It must demonstrate that relevance to a constituency whose very success has rested on its insistence that relevance is an issue.[10]

Could it be the root of this disconnect lies—at least in part—within evangelical theology itself ? At some point, the evangelical academy must take a certain measure of responsibility for the fact that evangelical laity and clergy often find its scholarship lacking relevance for ecclesial life and ministry. Clearly there are many factors involved in this issue, not all of which impugn academic scholarship. But in the spirit of Lam 3:40, perhaps it is time for those of us committed to evangelical theology to once again “examine and probe our ways.”

I believe the contextual shift of evangelical theologians from the local church to that of the academy has slanted evangelical theology toward distinctly apologetic concerns; the result is a theological project lacking in ecclesial focus.[11] Part of the solution, I believe, is the renewal of the pastor-scholar paradigm—a paradigm in which pastors not only read scholarship, but write scholarship—thus returning a distinctly ecclesial voice to evangelical theology. Evangelicalism, I believe, is once again in need of theologians—such as Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Edwards, and Wesley—who live and move primarily within the social location of the local church. It is, I will argue, more than a coincidence that the majority of history’s most enduring theologians were churchmen.

Toward this end, this article will briefly recount the shift in social location for North American theologians from the local church to the academy, and suggest ways in which this shift has impacted evangelical theology. The article will conclude with a few thoughts on how to re-introduce the pastor-scholar paradigm.

Before beginning, however, a quick word regarding agenda is important. When the subject of “disconnect” is discussed, the conversation typically runs something akin to the following: seminaries are out of touch with the real needs of the local church—”real needs” being defined as counseling, evangelism, leadership training, and preaching—and are not properly preparing future clergy in the things that really matter. I call this the “ministerial disconnect.” While it is an important issue no doubt, this article has nothing to do with it. Instead, my goal here is to explore a more fundamental sort of disconnect—a theological one—between academic scholarship and the theological (not ministerial) needs of local church ministry. In other words, my goal here is not to critique the focus of seminary training, but rather the focus of seminary theology.

II. Evangelical Theologians and Changing Social Locations

Without question, the local church was the most significant social location for early evangelical theologians in North America. During the days of the first Christian colleges (and prior to the advent of the seminary), evangelical theology in North America was advanced by practitioners such as Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), Samuel Hopkins (1721–1803), and Joseph Bellamy (1719–1790).[12] Men such as these not only served as pastors to local congregations, but acted also as national theologians and mentors for future generations of clerical theologians. In a culture where church attendance was often mandatory—and where pastors shepherded whole towns (usually without competition)—the pastor’s influence over secular and civil life was significant. This social influence translated into theological influence, both with the laity and with the early colleges.

Unlike the present day, it was the pastors in the churches, rather than the professors in the academy, who served as the “nation’s most important theologians.”[13] The theological colleges were established by local church pastors to feed the needs of local church ministry and were in large measure under the formal and informal theological authority of the pastoral community.[14] Often it was young men in their later teens and early twenties who served as tutors in the colleges; tutorship was frequently a short-term profession, viewed as a stepping stone to the theological prestige of pastoral ministry. George Marsden notes that even being the rector of a college could be seen as a step down from the pastorate.[15] He recounts the difficulty of Yale College in its attempts to replace former rector Timothy Cutler. After two years of vacancy, the trustees of the college were still “working their way through a list of Connecticut ministers but could pry none from their parishes.”[16] This relationship between pastor and tutor created an environment in which, in the main, the tutor was not generally seen as the primary formulator of evangelical theology, but rather the teacher of evangelical theology.

Further, it was the pastoral community, rather than the colleges, that provided the most important means of theological education for prospective clergy. Young men seeking clerical occupation would frequently attend college (a two-year program in those days), and then pursue “finishing school” under a practicing pastor in one of the “schools of the prophets.”[17] In as much as the pastoral and theological communities were not distinct, these schools provided training in theological studies as well as the practical aspects of ministry. A young clerical candidate would seek out an apprenticeship with a respected clergyman, and the arrangement would usually result in the student living with the pastor and his family. The theological training was heavily weighted toward systematic theology, included the study of Greek, church history (mostly Reformation and post-Reformation study), and provided the opportunity for pastoral candidates to spend hours “reading divinity” with their mentor.[18]

The theological authority of the pastoral community over that of the academy can be seen in that these informal schools were often of more value in clerical placement than the colleges. If forced to choose between the two, many young men would opt for the former. Indeed, such post-college training was a virtual requirement for young men pursing pastoral ministry in New England. David Kling notes that “in nearly every case [of Yale college graduates] those young men attracted to the New Divinity sought further training at the home of a New Divinity cleric.”[19] The pastoral community contained the theological powerbrokers of the day.

My aim in recounting the above is not to suggest that clerical training is better done by pastors in the local church. While the local church needs to do more in this regard, I continue to believe that the evangelical academy must maintain a vital role in clerical training. Rather, I highlight the early New England paradigm in order to show that early theologians and pastors were one and the same. The contemporary bifurcation between scholar and pastor did not exist in the early days of North American evangelicalism.

But the close of the eighteenth century saw the emergence of at least two factors that significantly contributed to the demise of the pastor-scholar paradigm. The first was the urbanization and secularization of American culture. Towns became cities, and cities became too big for a single church. The monopoly that once guaranteed clerical power over civil affairs was broken. Laws requiring church attendance, once standard in Congregational New England, became unenforceable. As American culture became more diverse and cosmopolitan, the clergy, who had long occupied a place of prominence in both the secular and religious spheres of colonial life, began to lose their political and cultural significance;[20] with it went their theological influence.

Likewise, the evangelical divinity schools were founded in the midst of this cultural shift. Beginning with Andover in 1808, and followed by Princeton in 1812, theological training previously accomplished via the Schools of the Prophets was gradually replaced by institutional training in the divinity schools. Increasingly, the theologians of North American evangelicalism transitioned from pulpit to lectern. As is seen today, the migration from church to academy has been virtually absolute; the pastor-scholar has been replaced by the professor-scholar. This shift in social location has significantly influenced the scope and focus of evangelical theology.

III. Social Location and Theological Formulation

It is now almost universally recognized that social location profoundly influences theological reflection. The contemporary emphasis on social location is due largely to the rise of postmodern epistemology. Postmodernity, for all of its shortcomings, reminds us that our neutral ways of looking at a given data set are “in fact not neutral but biased.”[21] Unable to disentangle ourselves fully from our own particular contexts, we view the world through a unique set of epistemic lenses; God alone has the bird’s eye view. These lenses not only influence what we see, but even more importantly, the “first thoughts”[22] — the questions we bring to the epistemic task. No longer do we approach theological investigation from without, over and above. Immersed within our own unique social location, the road before us has, to a certain extent, already been forked.

Theology is largely an attempt to appropriate the truth of Scripture in light of life’s questions. Consequently, each theologian’s theological paradigm will be—cannot help but be—heavily influenced and directed by the particular questions that arise from his or her unique social location. Certainly it was the backdrop of Old Calvinism’s unwillingness to preach the gospel indiscriminately that led to Jonathan Edwards’s important distinction between moral and natural ability, paving the way for the gospel of immediate repentance that so typified the Great Awakening. And just as certainly it was Luther’s immersion in the semi-Pelagian soteriological paradigm of medieval scholasticism that caused him to rethink the doctrine of justification. In these instances, the unique social location of each theologian raised important questions that subsequently directed their task of theological reflection. As Daniel Migliore appropriately notes, “The concrete situation of theology helps to shape the questions that are raised and the priorities that are set.”[23]

We need not exaggerate the significance of social location. Undoubtedly postmodernity has done so; yet just as certainly modernity has not given it its proper due. Even conservative critics who reject post-foundational epistemologies readily acknowledge “that all interpretations of Scripture are shaped by the context of the interpreter.”[24] Postmodernity, though not the first epistemologically focused age to recognize the importance of social location in theological formulation, has appropriately brought to the fore an element of theological formulation that was present—yet underemphasized—in the modernist theological systems of old.

Could it be that the academic social location of contemporary evangelical theology is contributing to at least part of the theological disconnect between the academy and the local church? I believe so. As evangelical theologians moved out of the pulpit and into the classroom, their theological agenda moved as well. The academic setting and the ecclesial setting represent two unique social locations. Each context has its own legitimate, yet distinct, questions. Migliore gets to the heart of my concern when he writes, “Each social location of theology imposes its own set of questions … its own special emphasis. Theology in the academic context naturally tends to be apologetically oriented: theology in the church is interested primarily in the clarification and interpretation of the church’s message.”[25]

Undoubtedly there is much crossover between the social location of the evangelical academy and that of pastoral ministry. But, as will be seen below, the academic context for contemporary evangelical theologians has given evangelical theology an “academic/apologetic” turn that does not always translate well to the concerns of ecclesial life.

IV. The Professor-Scholar and the Apologetic Turn of Evangelical Theology

As Migliore suggests, academic theology “tends to be apologetic.”[26] This should not surprise us. Early North American theologians were nearly all evangelical pastors, and the majority of early theological reflection was directed toward “in-house” ecclesial matters. But as evangelical theologians were moving toward the academy, the theological winds of German modernity began to blow across the Atlantic. The evangelical understanding of Scripture was forcibly confronted with the deconstructive nature of higher criticism. Seminaries began to liberalize; theological education became increasingly secular. In order to remain respectable in the eyes of an increasingly secularizing academic community, as well as an increasingly secularizing culture, the survival of the evangelical seminary became closely linked to the defense of Scripture. As seminaries divided down hermeneutical lines, those theologians who remained evangelical were forced to develop a specific theology in light of their liberal counterparts. This theological milieu brought about a refocusing of priorities for North American evangelical theologians, moving evangelical reflection away from primarily “inhouse” pietistic concerns and toward perimeter apologetic concerns.[27]

The trend toward secularized religious studies continues in our present academic context. Evangelical academic theologians now often find themselves on the fringes of an established, often hostile, wider academic community that can seem “to have more to do with elitism, ideological warfare and rampant antireligious propaganda than with the advancement of learning or excellence.”[28] An undisguised and unapologetic evangelical agenda is often not looked upon with favor by the secular academy.

Many of our best commentaries, journals, and systematic theologies reflect this sense of disenfranchisement. In as much as evangelical theologians have entered into the wider, and often hostile, academic discussion, apologetically oriented theology has become normative to evangelical thought in a way that was not seen in the early days of North American evangelicalism.[29] It would be unfair to suggest that evangelical academic theology is merely or only (or even primarily) apologetic in nature. Yet certainly the apologetic concerns of our academic theologians drive much of evangelical reflection. A great deal of intellectual energy that used to be spent developing evangelical theology is now being redirected toward defending evangelical theology.[30]

Further, in as much as evangelical academic theologians struggle for a place at the wider academic table, they are in some measure forced to play by pre-established rules—rules that are often implicitly or explicitly anti-supernatural. We live in community. And not only does each unique community shape our theological reflection, it serves as the primary sounding board for our theological scholarship. Each audience has its own set of rules, presuppositions, relational dynamics, dominant personalities, and cultural taboos. Audience drives, and sets the bounds for, theological reflection. Given the often anti-supernatural nature of wider academic theology, evangelical theologians often find themselves formulating theology within the bounds set by the liberal and secular divinity schools.

New Testament scholarship must now address form and source criticism, but expertise in such fields, though necessary for defending evangelical orthodoxy, is “of only minimal help to the interpreter.”[31] The battles of higher criticism are hard fought, and when won, allow us merely to hold the ground upon which we were already standing. Evangelical historians feel the press of this as well. Those who discuss the Great Awakening, for example, must do so within the pre-established anti-supernatural framework that governs such a topic. The very concept of a wide-scale spiritual awakening is questioned, and when acknowledged at all, is frequently attributed to social, political, or economic factors.[32] Working within such constraints, though perhaps necessary when in dialogue with the wider academic community (and perhaps not even then), makes it difficult for the evangelical historian to draw explicitly evangelical applications from historical events such as the Great Awakening or the Reformation.[33]

Similar constraints fetter the intellectual historian’s task as well. The postmodern refusal to pass judgment on the moral worth of the other, combined with the modern ideal of the disinterested observer, has significantly hampered our ability to speak prophetically in the realm of historical doctrine. Within the wider academic world, any attempts at moral evaluation are viewed as “improper” to the historical task.[34] The articulation of bare history, not moral evaluation with a view to contemporary concerns, serves as the only legitimate historical method.[35] Such an approach makes the appropriation of a Luther, Aquinas, or Augustine quite difficult. Rather than studying Augustine in order to know what the church should believe, Augustine must be studied in order to know what Augustine believed. Though there are certainly difficulties inherent in any attempt to appropriate the thought of a past thinker for contemporary application, who better than our intellectual historians to understand the ramifications of classic doctrinal debates and their significance for contemporary evangelicalism? Yet the wider academic concern for methodological agnosticism often prevents such gains.

In as much as evangelical scholars are called to the wider academic conversation, it is appropriate that he or she respect (and respectfully challenge) the rules that govern the dialogue. Yet evangelical theology misses out when the best and brightest of our scholars consistently subject the best and brightest of their reflection to secular presuppositions and ideology. An apologetically focused theology, though essential, forms only the outer ring of the theological enterprise. It defends the structure, but it is not itself the whole structure.

In this spirit, Wayne Grudem wonders whether we are “spending so much of our time on topics and agendas that have been set by liberal scholars, that we [are neglecting] the real needs of the Church.”[36] Perhaps Grudem overreaches when he implies that apologetic concerns do not in some measure constitute the “real needs of the church,” yet certainly he is correct in asserting that this new focus—which dominates the best of evangelical thought—is not always congruent with ecclesial/pietistic concerns. Grudem continues,

I taught a course … in “non-evangelical theology.” … I had the [students] read … sections from Kant and Schleiermacher and Bultmann and Moltmann and Pannenberg. The students did quite well … but at the end of the course, after I had taught it for the second time, I remember saying to myself, “I honestly don’t think this is a very good use of my time.” Neither I nor my students attained any new insight into the teachings of Scripture that could be used to help the Church… . I did not think it was what God was calling me to spend much time on. And frankly, I don’t think that God calls very many evangelicals to do that.[37]

For Grudem, the audience of evangelical theology has shifted too far toward non-evangelical concerns. Though he acknowledges that many gifted theologians should invest themselves in the wider academic discussions, he contends that evangelical’s best scholars should be open to the possibility that God is calling them to devote their energies to purely evangelical concerns.[38]

In as much as evangelical theological formulation is now almost exclusively academic, and in as much as the primary audience of academic theology is no longer a strictly evangelical one, evangelical theology is no longer being done with sufficient attention to ecclesial/pietistic concerns. Certainly we must continue to advance a robust evangelical presence in the wider academic community; evangelical academic theology must continue. But we must also recognize that such an agenda is at many points quite distinct from ecclesial concerns. In fact, the trajectories of the academic and ecclesial worlds have diverged such that the demands of the academy often make full time pastoral ministry a detriment to one’s academic career. The experience of my former pastor illustrates this well.

Holding a Ph.D. in theology, our pastor came to our church from a respected evangelical seminary where he had both served as dean and taught theology.

After serving at our church for seven years, he resigned to pursue once again a teaching career. Upon submitting his resume to a Bible school, he was initially given only a one-year contract. The reason given by the school for the tentative commitment was his long hiatus out of academics. There was concern that due to his time in pastoral ministry he would no longer be abreast of important theological issues. The respective social locations of the academy and the local church have moved so far apart that ministry in a local church is now often seen as a detriment to one’s ability to adequately formulate theology for an institution whose primary purpose is to provide theological training for local church pastors!

V. Preparing for the Future by Looking to the Past: Return of the Pastor-Scholar

If the unique audience and social location of the academy has pointed evangelical theology down a path that is at times quite distinct from that of parish ministry, where are we to find theologians whose theological reflection is driven primarily by ecclesial concerns? The obvious answer is the pastoral community. Who better to formulate ecclesial theology than those immersed within the social location of parish ministry?

Early evangelical theologians in North America were practitioners, and the press of parish ministry was the soil out of which their theological reflection grew. For theologians such as Edwards, the “efflorescence of scientific, philosophical, and later, psychological rumination took place within a context of weekly preaching on the Word.”[39] The fruit of this reflection was then given to the academy where it was used to shape the theological matrix of future pastoral candidates. The flow of evangelical theology was from the local church to the academy and then back to the local church. Evangelical theology, though passing through the academy, was not born in the academy, nor was its primary audience an academic one. It was ecclesial in that it originated primarily in the local church, and that it was primarily for the local church. Such a relationship between the academy and the local church seems undeniably healthy. What better social location than the local church for those theologians whose primary task is to formulate theology for the advancement of the local church?

The theological playing field has changed since Edwards’s day, and there can be no turning back the clock. Eighteenth-century North American evangelicalism did not need academic scholars; we, however, do. Yet it is not a zero sum game. We must not neglect ecclesial theology. Though I believe the seminary to be a vital component of pastoral and theological training, I am not convinced that the academy should serve as the sole context for the formulation of evangelical theology. The pastoral office must once again become the social location for a significant number of evangelical theologians.

Theology can be done in the local church. History has shown it to be so, even beyond the North American context. That the church’s greatest theologians have almost all been churchmen, weekly—even daily—ministering to the laity, is an indication of how vital it is to wed theological formulation and praxis. As Packer notes, “Professional theologians should be winning their spurs as pastors no less than as scholars.”[40] Evangelical theology must be informed and influenced by the demands of funerals, crisis marriage counseling, addictions, church polity, and the day-to-day grind of average parish life. Rather than being a distraction from the theological task, the press of pastoral ministry actually helps prioritize the theological issues facing the ecclesial theologian, while at the same time acting as a governor, preventing excessive speculation on peripheral matters. Few things keep a theologian grounded more than an equal mix of teaching to both laity and fellow scholars.

The enduring legacy of men such as Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, and Edwards shows not only the viability, but indeed the desirability, of once again uniting the mutually dependent roles of theologian and practitioner. As Edwards historian Doug Sweeney points out,

Edwards teaches us that theology can and should be done primarily in the church… . Today, many pastors have abdicated their responsibilities as theologians, and many professors do their work in a way that is lost on the people of God. I want to be realistic in making this point. A certain amount of specialization is inevitable in modern, market-driven economies. But when pastors spend the bulk of their time on organizational concerns, and professors spend most of their time on intramural, academic concerns, no one is left to do the work that Edwards knew is most important: the hard work of opening the Scriptures in ways that deepen the faith, hope, and love of the church.[41]

Contemporary models, though not the norm, bolster Sweeney’s assertion. Churchmen such as N. T. Wright demonstrate the possibility of such a union in our contemporary context. Wright notes his own desire to wed the callings of pastor and theologian:

When I was at seminary in my early twenties, having graduated, I remember talking to one of my advisors about my desire to do both pastoral work and scholarship, and the advisor saying very firmly ‘well, you’re going to have to choose which you want.’ And I thought then and think now thirty-five years later that he was wrong, that I have been right to combine the two… . I think both the church and the academy have suffered from the disjunction. I think it’s important that some people at least get to that particular place of pain, which is a place of, as it were, cultural pain. Not least in North America, maybe more in North America than England… . I sit in a study at home where the great portrait on the wall is J. B. Lightfoot, who was one of the most famous ever bishops of Durham and also one of the five leading intellectuals in Europe of his day. He embodies the fact that you should be bringing this stuff together.[42]

Yet the current generation of parish ministers—on the whole—lacks the theological giftedness to take up the task of theological formulation. By and large, our theologians do not reside in our churches; they have been sent almost exclusively to our academies. Consequently, the pastoral community is largely devoid of individuals who feel a calling toward theological formulation. Pastors are expected to know theology (and this less and less), but are not generally expected to write theology. (Even the term “pastor-scholar” lacks the punch it once had. For many in our day, the term does not conjure images of Augustine, Edwards, and Calvin, but rather of a local church pastor who reads widely in theology.) It is unreasonable, therefore, to insist that the current generation of clergy assume a responsibility for which it is not collectively gifted.

Yet if history has shown the wisdom and viability of once again reuniting the calling of the pastor with the task of the theologian, how are we to effect the needed paradigm shift? In closing, I offer three preliminary thoughts.

VI. Conclusion

First, and perhaps most significantly, there is a need for both the ecclesial and academic communities to recognize the inherent limitations of academic theology in meeting all the theological needs of the local church. I have read much regarding the disconnect between the academy and the local church, but few are the voices suggesting a link between social location, theological formulation, and the need for many of our theologians to return to the local church. Too often the solutions offered to this problem amount to little more than a call for academic theologians to “try harder.” Until we become convinced that our contemporary solutions—which differ little than past solutions—are not entirely sufficient, we will not see a need to return to the pastor-scholar paradigm.

Secondly, I believe we must find ways to reestablish a network for pastor-scholars.[43] Such theological communities would be particularly important for the emerging ecclesial theologian, who, being immersed in parish ministry, often does not have direct access to the network of relationships found within the academic community. I am aware, however, that the demand for such a community is minimal at present. This leads to my third suggestion.

Since most pastors today are simply not equipped—by calling or training—to take up the task of theological formulation, it is necessary to hold out the pastor-scholar vision to the rising generation of theology students. Not every future scholar is called to pastoral ministry. Nor is every future pastor called to a life of scholarship. But many do feel torn between these two worlds. As Wright notes above, young people are led to believe they must choose between these two desires. But this need not be; there is a third option—the option of wedding the pastoral calling to the theological task. It is this group of young people, I believe, who hold the most potential for effecting a shift in theological formulation.

And finally, local churches sensitive to the value of the pastor-scholar calling must once again give theological reflection a place on the pastor’s “to do” list. Church ministry structures that equate pastoral responsibility with administrative responsibility do not lend themselves to the pastor-scholar paradigm. Again, not every pastor is called to a life of scholarship. Yet some are. And churches that hire such individuals do evangelical theology a great service when they allow their pastors to exercise their scholarly giftedness within the context of the local church.

For as long as there is a secular academy, evangelicalism will always need a distinctly academic voice. The contributions of our academic theologians must not be minimized, and their willingness to do “double duty” regarding their concern for ecclesial theology has been vital to the health of evangelicalism. Scholars such as Grudem, McGrath, Packer, Carson, and others have made solid contributions to both the academic and ecclesial worlds; to them evangelicalism is indebted. But for too long the pastoral community—the community best situated to bring a distinctly ecclesial voice to evangelical theology—has laid aside its collective task as theologians. Though not every future pastor must be a theologian, it would seem a worthy goal that many of our future theologians become pastors. Yet such a reality will likely not emerge without intentional, unified effort by both the local church and the academy.

Undoubtedly, some will feel I have exaggerated the theological disconnect between the academy and the local church. And perhaps moving theological formulation back to the local church context is not the final answer to this chronic problem. But certainly a pastoral community that contributes a robust voice to wider evangelical scholarship would be a tremendous blessing for the church. Who would contest this? Perhaps now is the time to sow once again the seeds that will eventually return the clergy to its proper role as the primary articulator of evangelicalism’s ecclesial theology. I conclude with a final admonition from one of evangelicalism’s leading academic theologians:

Evangelicals [should] look towards the community of faith, to seek and find authority in individuals with a proven record of fidelity to the Christian tradition, a concern for the consensus fidelium, a love for the gospel, and a responsible and informed concern to relate it to the world—whether this is recognized by the academy or not. The best intellectuals [of tomorrow] may exist and operate outside the academy![44]

“Outside the academy” indeed! Where better than the local church?

Notes

1. See Donald M. Scott, From Office to Profession: The New England Ministry, 1750–1850 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), 124–25, as well as Gary Scott Smith, “Presbyterian and Methodist Education,” in Theological Education in the Evangelical Tradition (ed. D. G. Hart and R. Albert Mohler Jr.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 88–93. Both works recount the frustration that has historically existed between the academy and the local church.
2. See R. Albert Mohler Jr., “Thinking of the Future: Evangelical Education in a New Age,” in Theological Education in the Evangelical Tradition, 278–79, as well as Richard J. Mouw, “Challenge of Evangelical Theological Education,” in ibid., 285. Both men discuss the increasing dissatisfaction among evangelical laity for sustained theological education in a formal academic setting.
3. I will be using the term “theology” in a British/U.K. sense to denote the broad spectrum of subjects studied in the contemporary divinity school (e.g., exegesis, philosophy of religion, church history, history of doctrine, etc.).
4. Alister E. McGrath, “Theology and the Futures of Evangelicalism,” in The Futures of Evangelicalism (ed. Craig Bartholomew; Leicester: InterVarsity, 2003), 17–18.
5. Ibid., 19.
6. The study can be found in David F. Wells, God in the Waste Land: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 186–213, 228–56. See also Wells, “Educating for a Counter Cultural Spirituality,” in Theological Education in the Evangelical Tradition, 290–99, as well as No Place for Truth: Or, Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993).
7. Wells, “Educating for a Counter Cultural Spirituality,” 295.
8. McGrath, “Theology and the Futures of Evangelicalism,” 22.
9. Ibid., 21.
10. Ibid., 23.
11. As I will note later in this article, an apologetic agenda must remain central to the task of evangelical theology. My critique is not that we have too much apologetic theology, but rather that we do not have enough ecclesial theology.
12. My historical survey will be largely focused on New England and draw from the legacy of the “New Divinity” movement, which grew out of the ministry of Jonathan Edwards. Though my historical analysis is thus limited in scope, the ecclesial/academic characteristics of the New Divinity movement were not unique within wider North American evangelicalism.
13. Doug Sweeney, “Jonathan Edwards at Home and Abroad,” interviewed by Steve Farish for Trinity Magazine (Spring 2004): 21.
14. See Scott, From Office to Profession, 52–53.
15. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003), 110.
16. Ibid., 101.
17. Ibid., 32. For more on these schools, see also D. G. Hart and R. Albert Mohler Jr., introduction to Theological Education in the Evangelical Tradition, 15, as well as David W. Kling, “New Divinity Schools of the Prophets,” in ibid., 129–47.
18. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 32. See also Hart and Mohler, “Introduction,” 15.
19. David W. Kling, A Field of Divine Wonders: The New Divinity and Village Revivals in Northwestern Connecticut, 1792–1822 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), 29.
20. Scott, From Office to Profession, 28–29, 58–59, 72–75. Scott records the cultural and political shifts, both within evangelicalism and outside of it, that gave rise to the demise and restructuring of clerical influence in wider North American culture.
21. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, First Theology: God, Scripture and Hermeneutics (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2002), 19. For Vanhoozer’s treatment of postmodern epistemology, see 19–24.
22. See ibid., 9–13, for Vanhoozer’s use of this phrase. For Vanhoozer, “first thoughts” (or prolegomena) involve the questions that each theologian brings to the theological task.
23. Daniel L. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 14.
24. D. A. Carson, “Domesticating the Gospel: A Review of Grenz’s Renewing the Center,” in Reclaiming the Center: Confronting Evangelical Accommodation in Postmodern Times (ed. Millard J. Erickson et al.: Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2004), 32. See also Millard Erickson, “On Flying in Theological Fog,” in ibid., 337–40, where he recounts the effect of social location on theologians such as Barth, Tillich, Niebuhr, and Moltmann. The epistemology debates within evangelicalism typically focus on foundational and post-foundational epistemology. For more on foundationalism, see Stanley J. Grenz, “Articulating the Christian Belief-Mosaic: Theological Method After the Demise of Foundationalism,” in Evangelical Futures: A Conversation on Theological Method (ed. John G. Stackhouse Jr.; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000), 107–19; David K. Clark, To Know and Love God: Method for Theology (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2003), 153–56; Kevin J. Vanhoozer, “The Voice and the Actor: A Dramatic Proposal about the Ministry and Minstrelsy of Theology,” in Evangelical Futures: A Conversation on Theological Method, 75–86; and J. P. Moreland and Garret De Weese, “The Premature Report of Foundationalism’s Demise,” in Reclaiming the Center, 81–108.
25. Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 14.
26. Ibid., 14.
27. George, writing in reference to the Baptist tradition, notes that by the early twentieth century “the primary community of accountability [shifted] from the churches to the academy” (Timothy George, “The Baptist Tradition,” in Theological Education in the Evangelical Tradition, 41).
28. McGrath, “Theology and the Futures of Evangelicalism,” 25–26.
29. Cf., e.g., excellent contemporary theologies such as Clark, To Know and Love God, or John Fein-berg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2001), with early evangelical treatises such as Jonathan Edwards’s Freedom of the Will or his The End for Which God Created the World. The difference in social location is readily discerned. Cf. also recent commentaries such as William Lane, Hebrews (2 vols.; WBC 47A-B; Dallas: Word, 1991), with the commentary on the same epistle by Scottish pastor-scholar John Brown (1784–1858). The latter’s more pastoral and in-house evangelical focus becomes quickly apparent.
30. Similarly, Caneday laments the lengths to which evangelical theologians have gone in responding to the epistemic agnosticism of postmodernity, suggesting that evangelical theologians are “occupying themselves more with methods for doing theology than with doing theology” (A. B. Caneday, “Is Theological Truth Functional or Propositional: Postconservatism’s Use of Language Games and Speech-Act Theory,” in Reclaiming the Center, 137). He goes on to note that the desire among evangelical theologians to maintain “theological correctness” in the face of the wider academic community “tends to intimidate and shape Christian theological action, speech and thought” (138).
31. D. A. Carson et al., eds., An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 45
32. E.g., historian Juster looks to sexuality as an explanation for the Great Awakening. She writes, “The key to Whitfield’s phenomenal success as a revivalist lay in his ability to fuse female passions with the language of consummation” (Susan Juster, “The Spirit and the Flesh: Gender, Language, and Sexuality in American Protestantism,” in New Directions in American Religious History [ed. Harry S. Stout and D. G. Hart; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997], 342).
33. Lloyd-Jones, discussing the study of historical revivals such as the Great Awakening, writes, “We are not interested in [revivals] merely from the historical standpoint....There is no point in reading about revivals just for the sake of reading the history in the stories. No, our motive and our interest must be to read and to study and to consider what has happened in the past, in order that we may discover the great principles that underlie this matter, in order, in other words, that we may discover what it is that we should be seeking and praying for in our own day and generation. It should be a utilitarian, rather than an antiquarian interest and motive that should govern us” (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival [Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994], 93). Such a perspective is certainly out of step with wider academic historical studies, and even has a certain dissonance within evangelical academic circles.
34. McGrath follows this precedent in his magisterial work on the doctrine of justification, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Redemption (2d ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). In his discussion regarding Lutheranism’s later modification of Luther’s theology, McGrath writes, “It would be improper to inquire as to whether this … modification was justified; it is however right and proper to note that it took place” (219). See also p. 395 for his concluding comments, which reflect a similar sentiment.
35. See James E. Bradley and Richard A. Muller, Church History: An Introduction to Research, Reference Works, and Methods (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 11-25, for a discussion regarding the progression of historical method. Bradley and Muller argue for a form of methodological agnosticism for the Christian historian.
36. Wayne Grudem, “Do We Act as If We Really Believe That ‘The Bible Alone, and the Bible in Its Entirety, Is the Word of God Written’?” JETS 43 (2000): 19.
37. Ibid., 21.
38. Ibid. See in particular pp. 16-23. I believe Grudem is largely correct here, yet a caveat is in order. I am not suggesting, as Grudem’s comments seem to indicate, that evangelical theologians ignore non-evangelical theology. Certainly evangelicalism does not hold the final word on theological reflection, and we must be open to the possibility that non-evangelicals can make significant contributions to orthodox thought. Historically this has proven to be true; Augustine appropriated neo-Platonism and directed it toward (in my mind) a decidedly biblical conception of ontological salvation. Aquinas leaned heavily on Aristotle, and Edwards drew deeply from Locke in developing his morphology of conversion. Even the main thesis of this article is sourced largely in the emphasis on social location that has been championed by non-evangelical postmodern thinkers. Philosophy has since moved beyond Plotinus, Aristotle, and Locke, and will undoubtedly move beyond Derrida, Foucault, and other postmodern thinkers as well. Yet evangelicalism still draws heavily from thinkers such as Augustine and Edwards (and to a lesser extent Aquinas), whose appropriation of the reigning philosophies of their day enabled them to think afresh about Christian theology. We do well to plunder the Egyptians. Yet plundering the Egyptians is one thing; offering our theological sacrifices according to the dictates of Egypt is altogether different. In my mind we have come too close to the latter.
39. John E. Smith et al., eds., introduction to A Jonathan Edwards Reader (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), xvi.
40. J. I. Packer, “Maintaining Evangelical Theology” in Evangelical Futures: A Conversation on Theological Method, 184.
41. Sweeney, “Jonathan Edwards,” 21.
42. N. T. Wright, “An Interview with N. T. Wright (Part 1 of 6),” interviewed by Jason Fout, n.p. Online: http://www.gowerstreet.blogspot.com/2004/11/interview-with-nt-wright-part-1-of-6.html (accessed 21 August 2005).
43. It is toward this end that the Society for the Advancement of Ecclesial Theology (SAET) was founded. SAET seeks to provide pastor-scholars with the resources, encouragement, and relationships necessary for the scholarly task. For more information regarding SAET, see www.saet-online. org.
44. McGrath, “Theology and the Futures of Evangelicalism,” 29.