Blogging about God-Talk

When Bishop Provenzano asked me to accept appointment as Canon Theologian, he asked me to help us in the diocese to think theologically. The word theology comes from two Greek words, theos, meaning God and logos, meaning words or thought or thinking. So theology is words to do with God. In its formal sense, it’s the study of God, or, as Richard Hooker put it in the 16th century, “the science of things divine.”

All of us have thoughts about God. Each of us understands God a little differently, because of the ways we have been taught and the experiences we have had.When I was in 8th grade, I was cast as God in a play – and dressed up in a white toga (bedsheet) and a cottonwool beard. As an adult, my understanding of God has changed, so that I think of God less in terms of a costume, and more in terms of our relationship – and so today when I imagine God, it’s often as a person sitting in an armchair beside me in front of a fire, in the midst of a never-ending conversation.

You all have your own images of God, and some of what I’ll do in this column and its associated blog is explore some of the ways we think of God. But our faith isn’t just in our heads. Being a Christian is also about how we live – and so thinking theologically is not just thinking about God, but learning to live our lives with God in mind.

Recently I was in Washington, DC, for a conference, where I heard the chaplain to the Senate, Dr. Barry C. Black, preach. He spoke about how in Bible studies – with senators from both sides of the political divide – they discuss how to make ethical decisions, and reflect on how they would answer to God for the decisions they make.

That’s thinking theologically.

In a Bible study in my parish a few weeks ago, we looked at Colossians 3: 12-17, where it talks about forgiveness. Forgiveness sounds like a good idea, until it comes to forgiving someone you have loved, who has wronged you. So how do forgive people who hurt us? The conclusion of one group member was to make a commitment to pray for the person who had caused her so much pain. That’s thinking theologically.

A few years ago, in a Sunday School class, we read 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, which describes the church as being like a body, and I asked the kids what part of the body they were. One eight year old, the clown of the class, said, “The funny bone!” (He also told me that when he receives communion, he thinks of Jesus and how he loves us and died for us.) That’s thinking theologically.

Thinking theologically is what we do when we look for the connections between God and our lives. Sometimes we’ll begin with God, and say something like “If God is like _____, what difference does it make for the way I live?” Other times we’ll begin with something going on in our lives – a struggle, a joy, a dilemma - and ask, “What has God got to say about this?” or “What would God have me do about this?” or even “How is God responsible for this?” – and in that case “How do I respond?” Thinking theologically is at the very core of how we live out our faith as Christians.

So please, join the conversation!

I’ll be writing a more or less weekly blog at the diocese’s website: www.dioceselongisland.org/god-talk

And I’d be happy to receive your questions by email at: rjwhiteley@dioceseli.org