I’ve been ruminating on…everyday life
A few years ago I wrote a research paper in which I attempted to develop a Christian view (or theology) of cars. I remember the reactions I received from people when I told them what I was working on. Responses varied, but almost without exception the only variance was the degree of consternation and mirth my subject produced!
I was not the least bit offended by these responses, but it did trouble me somewhat. Underlying the laughter appeared to be an assumption that theology and cars were mutually exclusive. It seemed implausible that the two subjects could ever be mentioned in the same sentence as each other. They were to most of my friends and acquaintances, oxymoronic.
If my attempt to think theologically about cars seemed misguided, you can imagine the reaction the Scottish author, John Baillie, may have received in his attempt to write a theology of sleep! In his book Christian Devotion, he writes in deadly seriousness:
My subject is the theology of sleep. It is an unusual subject, but I make no apology for it. I think we hear far too few sermons about sleep. After all, we spend a very large share of our lives sleeping. …Don’t you agree then the Christian gospel should have something to say about the sleeping third of our lives as well as the waking two-thirds of them? [1]
What does theology have to do with everyday life?
R. Paul Stevens picks up a similar concern in his book on work, when he writes:
Living theologically! This title is an oxymoron like black light, constructive criticism, fried ice, or servant leadership – two ideas that normally do not belong together. What has theology to do with everyday life? [2]
This concern for the relevance of faith to our Monday to Saturday existence is not new. Fifty years ago Hendrik Kraemer wrote a landmark book pleading for theology to touch all spheres of life – particularly those outside of the immediate orbit of the church. He stated:
On the background of a theology of the laity, the indispensable complement is to develop various theologies of the realities and spheres of the world for the Church and for the laity. In recent years the cry for a theology of society, of work, of the common life, of money, of property – to mention only a few – is raised. The important thing in this cry is that in it becomes manifest the realisation that at the present time the Church is inescapably confronted with the demand of a total rethinking of the relevance of the Christian Message to the present world. [3]
Why do we find such explorations so strange? What is it about our twenty-first century faith that causes us to easily apply our Christianity to personal and sexual ethics, relationships and talking to others about Jesus, while ignoring (or at least leaving largely unexamined) significant aspects of our modern life such as work, leisure, transport, holidays, houses, sport, movies and the media?
After all, it’s not that there isn’t plenty of talk about the need to apply our Christian faith to all areas of life. There is lots of lip service given to the concept of whole-of-life discipleship. So why do we not easily reflect on the implications our faith might have on certain aspects of life – particularly the ones where large sums of our time, money and energy are invested?
Possible causes
Perhaps this sad state is partly attributable, as Michael Frost points out, to only seeing God at work in the spectacular and miraculous, and not in the ordinary things of life.[4]
A related issue is our propensity to categorise certain activities as either “spiritual” or “secular”. This dualism boxes God in, so that “worship-leading”, “sharing one’s faith” and praying are “spiritual” tasks. Conversely, eating, sleeping, driving, gardening, talking about the weather and going to the toilet, are matters which have little or nothing to do with God or our journey of discipleship.[5]
Our lack of attention to thinking Christianly about everyday life may also partly result from the huge cultural changes of the past century or two, where life has become increasingly compartmentalised, and employment has moved rapidly to specialisation. This fragmentation of life means that for most Christians, much of life is disconnected, with no common thread integrating what happens at “work”, at “home”, at “church” and in the neighbourhood and wider relationships and activities. Little help is given by church leaders to those who do want to see their faith make sense in all of life. For example, as Calvin Redekop has noted:
The truth is that the average Christian spends less than 2 percent of his or her waking time at church and most of their time working. Yet the church puts most of its energy and resources into that 2 percent and very little into the world of daily work. [6]
Another related issue is the process of secularisation – where faith fails to make any real difference to how we live and how society operates.[7] One consequence is the tendency to “privatize” faith and restrict it to certain areas of life (such as “personal” values and choices). It is viewed as having little to do with the more public arenas of life. A side effect of this is the development of a selective moralism – where only a narrow band of these personal and sexual concerns are viewed as being ethical issues, while significant social and political realities such as war, poverty and racism are often ignored. [8]
Richard Mouw notes yet another contributing factor. It’s the simple reality that, “…the theologising that takes place in the Christian church has been an overwhelmingly clergy-oriented activity.” [9] Naturally enough, in this environment theological reflection has been dominated by issues related to church life and practice.[10] Consequently, most Christians see theology as having little relevance to their day-to-day existence.
All these factors conspire against what for past generations of Christians such as the Puritans and early evangelicals, would be second-nature – the application of a biblical worldview to all of life.[11]
What does the Bible have to say?
This call for a theology of everyday life is fundamentally inherent in the scriptures – through the doctrine of creation and our responsibility as trustees of the earth.[12] It is also present in the Hebrew worldview which views all of life as interconnected. No word better picks up this integration than “shalom”. It speaks of completeness and wholeness; a state where all four of the alienations that marked the fall (from God, ourselves, others and creation) are restored and reconnected in harmony.[13]
The relationship between our faith and everyday life is also evidenced through the New Testament. Jesus consistently earths his teaching in the activities and relationships of day-to-day existence. Taxes need to be paid, feet have to be washed, water is required to be drawn – these are the material for more than just object lessons. They reinforce that the call to follow Jesus has practical implications. The master’s teaching through parables also reflects these earthy concerns.
Paul too, makes it clear that discipleship impacts the everyday. His letters are a case in point. They are a mixture of addressing urgent issues, theologising, and then describing some of the very practical implications of thinking and living Christianly.
The Bible is very clear and consistent with its message. Ultimately, real faith and real theology must make a real difference to the way we live. If it can’t be ‘lived and breathed’ then it is dead and useless, as James points out. That’s why Robert Banks argues:
If it is true, as the major Christian traditions have always insisted, that our religious convictions and values should be reflected in all that we do – the way we eat and drink, work and play, worship and vote, the quality of our parenting and friendships, our involvement with neighbours and colleagues, our engagement with popular or high culture – then there is much to consider. All these activities need to be related to our understanding of God, and whatever we learn must be incarnated in our behaviour. How else will others know that God makes a distinctive claim on our lives? [14]
For it’s only as we begin to think Christianly about eating, sleeping, working and relating, that we can genuinely give our whole lives as a living sacrifice or worship to God. Eugene Peterson expresses this well in his paraphrase of Romans 12:1, “…God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering.” [15]
I don’t like that word – theology!
One of the stumbling blocks for some people may be the fact that I’ve used that word – theology!
What images does that word conjure up to you? Perhaps it brings to mind the following definition?
Theology (noun) fixed position on Christianity, usually held with great dogmatism; doctrine – a system of understanding the world; intellectual thought with little relevance or application to everyday life
What theology is – and isn’t
It’s understandable if you have an allergic reaction to this word. Many of the stereotypes have been regularly reinforced.
But real theology is very different to our made-up definition. It’s really just a fancy word for the way we understand God.
All of us have a theology
Dwight Moody, the nineteenth century evangelist, was reputedly once asked “Mr Moody, what’s your theology?” Apparently he replied, “I don’t have one!”
How wrong he was. All of us have a theology. We may not consciously be able to articulate it, and there are likely to be gaping inconsistencies in it. Nevertheless, every person has an internal construction of how they view God and themselves and the world in relation to God.
The mistake we can easily make is to think that because we haven’t given a lot of thought to thinking through our beliefs they don’t impact the way we live and relate. The truth is that there is always a direct correlation between our belief systems and our lifestyle. (Though often what we think we believe is not actually in practice what we really do believe.)
Theologizing makes a practical difference in the way we live, and will lead to worship
Theology is not an end in itself. As we develop our belief system it should (indeed, will) impact on how we actually live and relate daily. In fact, a life of worship is the ultimate goal, the very purpose of theology. Far from being an impractical and ethereal intellectual exercise, theologizing (thinking through what we believe) is intensely practical and will transform our lives.
Our theology is not a fixed point, nor a tightly constructed statement
A nice, neat and consistent doctrinal statement about how we understand God and his ways is unlikely to be very helpful on the journey of faith. In fact, it is likely to end up being a noose around our necks, or a fierce dog backing us into a corner we can’t get out of.
The truth is that we are all “in process”. We all “see through the glass dimly” – straining to get a clearer view of who God is, who we are, and what this life is all about. None of us sees it as it really is. But as we journey with God and with each other the image becomes a little clearer week-by-week, year-by-year.
This means that no nice, neat and fixed doctrinal statement is ever much help. It doesn’t cut the mustard because as soon as we think we are seeing an aspect of God clearly, another experience or perspective muddies our view and adjusts the image. We never “get it nailed”. We are always learning and growing, seeking to discover more about the life of faith and it’s implications for our daily life.
Another factor makes it impossible to ever have it sussed. Our context is constantly changing. And since making sense of God and his ways only can occur through the filter of our own environment, culture and situation, adjustments always have to be made and new perspectives always considered.
This is the process of theologizing – thinking through what it means to follow Jesus – in everyday, down-to-earth contexts.
Ruminating more about everyday life issues…
If we genuinely believe that
- God is at work not only in the spectacular but also the everyday and mundane
- Nothing in life should be unrelated to God
- Reflecting on the implications of our faith for everyday life is a task for the whole people of God – not just “professional church leaders and theologians”…
…then real priority should be given to nurturing a theology that engages with the stuff of life – the “sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life”.
Doing this – even making a start – is not natural to most of us, so I’ve discovered. But if our faith is to genuinely impact all of our lives, we must begin. Fortunately there are some resources out there that can help us in this regard.
One such book that might kickstart us into action is a mammoth volume from the 1990’s, with the unfortunate title “The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity”. (How the publishers – IVP – could possibly presume this contribution to be ‘complete’ in any sense is something no-one apart from their marketing department could agree with.) This encyclopedic book is full of short articles written on subjects as diverse as “chocolate”, “retirement” and “television”.
Some earlier and more restricted attempts are John McInnes’ The New Pilgrims (1980) and Robert Banks’ All the Business of Life (1987). Both, sadly, are now out of print – having been published by John Waterhouse’s innovative but now defunct Albatross Press.
[1] John Baillie, Christian Devotion (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1962), 70. Quoted in Robert Banks, All the Business of Life (Sutherland, NSW: Albatross, 1987), 9.
[2] R.Paul Stevens, The Other Six Days (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 243.
[3] Hendrik Kraemer, A Theology of the Laity (London: Lutterworth, 1958), 185.
[4] See Michael Frost, Eyes Wide Open (Sutherland, NSW: Albatross, 1998), 11.
[5] See my article, “God’s Co-Workers” in Reality Issue 38 (Auckland: BCNZ, 2000) and Alistair Mackenzie and Wayne Kirkland, Where’s God on Monday? (Christchurch: NavPress, 2002), particularly chapter 9.
[6] Quoted in Where’s God on Monday? page 7. ‘Work’ here is used much more broadly than just paid employment.
[7] As D.Lyon notes, the term secularisation can be used in a number of different ways – the separation of church and state; pre-occupation with temporal concerns; or ‘worldliness’ within the church. It is this latter meaning that I have in mind here, where, “The salt of the earth becomes bland, blending innocuously with its surroundings.” See D.Lyon, ‘Secularization’, New Dictionary of Theology (ed.S.B.Ferguson & D.F.Wright; Downers Grove: IVP, 1988), 634-636.
[8] For an outstanding book on this subject, read Jim Wallis, God’s Politics: Why the Right gets it Wrong and the Left doesn’t get it (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005).
[9] Richard Mouw, Called to Holy Worldliness (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), page 22. Mouw argues that we not only require a theology of the laity, but also a theology for the laity and, most critically, theologising by the laity. Ultimately it is Christians in their own spheres of service who need to be helped to think theologically about what they are involved in on a day-by-day basis.
[10] This was Kraemer’s very point. No doubt it helps to explain why the church puts so little of its energy into the world of daily work.
[11] “There is no precept of universal truth relevant to living well in domestic economy, morality, political life, lawmaking which does not rightly pertain to theology.” This extract from William Ames’ Marrow of Theology, gives a sense of how important all-of-life theologising was to the Puritans. Quoted by Ian Breward in ‘Puritan Theology’, NDT, 550. The fact that so many of the early evangelicals were committed to the transformation of society illustrates how much more integrated their theology was, compared to much late nineteenth and twentieth-century evangelicalism.
[12] Both Richard J.Mouw and Paul Stevens make this point. See Mouw, 4; and Stevens, 244.
[13] G.Lloyd Carr notes that, “The general meaning behind the root sh-l-m is of completion and fulfilment – of entering into a state of wholeness and unity, a restored relationship.” See ‘Shalem’ in TWOT (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), II.930.
[14] Robert Banks, ‘Introduction’, TCBEC, vii.
[15] Eugene Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1993), 328.
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So are you going to buy a scooter!!