The term ‘engineer’ has a range of meanings. The person who fixes your central heating is an engineer. So is the person who works at NASA. An engineer ensures the propulsion unit under your railway seat is doing its job. Another engineer keeps the traffic lights working for another commuter. Engineers designed your Fiesta or Maserati. Engineers are everywhere; we can’t do without them They design engines, build bridges, provide clean water. But they are not all the same. They are not interchangeable.
Much the same is true of theologians. They investigate the meaning of documents; they acquire expertise in other languages; they draw up forms of words to define Christian belief. Like civil and mechanical engineers, they possess recognised qualifications. Like engineers, they know their stuff.
Sometimes an engineer turns out to be a Heath Robinson character. He or she is a dedicated amateur but an amateur none the less. Much as a teacher of English will readily tell you, his students already know English. They like to be their own experts. Churches are often well endowed with people who know about Romans 9-12 without any special training, theologians, knowledgeable persons after a fashion of their own.
Turn a theologian loose on the book of Jude and you may find yourself disappointed with his or her findings. ‘Jude’ itself is difficult. Try understanding the council of Jerusalem and its consequences and you may be glad to get the help of a a theologian who is temporarily unemployed.
Engineers are human; they do not always get it right. There is such a thing as the trahison des clercs. Henry Ford got it wrong when he replaced ballast and sleepers by unyielding vertical girders on his experimental railway track. Theologians are specialists. And they are specialists because they do a specialist job that otherwise would not get done. Life is busy enough for parents changing nappies and cutting the grass. They don’t have time or energy to become experts on the synoptic problem or the works of Isaiah Theologians have the time and the energy to do that job – even if they don’t always get it right.
CHOOSING THEOLOGY
On the face of it, choosing to read Theology at a university is not the most obvious thing to do. But if you look at the world today and see what major forces are at work, you may change your mind. Marx read theology. C.S. Lewis did not.
If you have a comment on this post please send an email to Revd John King at johnc.king@talktalk.net Edited extracts may be published. To forward this to a friend click on the chain icon below.