Recently I have been reading N.T. Wright's latest homerun, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. While I do not always agree with everything Wright says (this does not happen often), I very much appreciate his level of analysis of very complicated matters without making them pat or trite, while also being able to relate to non-academic audiences. He is currently the Bishop of Durham, one in a long series of very important posts. Previously, he was also in the academic world serving as a heavy hitter amongst the exegetical world of heavy hitters. He is known for saying he left the academic world because he got more"buzz" from being with clergy in the trenches more than students wanting to just finish their tutorials (see Christianity Today, June 2004).
Sometimes we find an academic who at least hopes that his work will trickle down to the masses and won't get lodged in the ivory tower of the academy - that it will be of some earthly good. Yet, being both an academic and a pastor (I'm not speaking of myself) lends itself to criticisms on both accounts. From the church, you hear complaints about not being relevant enough to the people or perhaps a snobby academic. From the academy, you hear that you are washed up, not publishing enough, too biased by the practical to be a good scholar of the texts. C.S. Lewis was criticized by his fellow academics for his children's books and his writings on Christianity because they were not serious scholarship. Yet, here we stand a half-century later, a changed people because of his direct influence upon the people.
Lewis himself said, "The problem when I became a believer in England was that you were left with either the hysterical rantings of the fanatics, or the intellectual elite of the clergy.... Had theologians been doing their work, I would have been unnecessary."
We, the evangelical church have become a wreckless mass of fanatical lunacy for the shallow experience and showy worship that dominates the scene of churches today. We have lost touch of the depth and richness of God and of the words of those who have gone before us. The academics are so far removed from the masses, that usually even pastors no longer read works of theology, but have traded them in for church growth how-to manuals.
The academics are the lost ancients to the church and must be found again. The academics must learn again to be vital in the lives of the people and of the life of the church. Perhaps, we need to retrain Christian scholarship so that from beginning to end, theology is grounded in the life of the church. The people are thirsty for depth, hungry for the meat of the Word and for the profoundness of the plethora of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
But how do we bridge this gap so that the masses are no longer receiving trickles but the full flow of the depth and His knowledge and grace?
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