Driven by a renewel of interest in theology, many students are questioning why Evangelical Christianity is hostile and suspicious towards theology. I had a chance to ask Dr. Archie Spencer of ACTS Seminary about some of these issues:

JH: Dr. Spencer, how do you feel about the importance of theology in Evangelical Protestant Christianity?

 AS: In a word, passionate! Evangelical Protestants have been at a crossroad for a few decades now and their inability to find their place, both as an ecclesial force in and as a contributor to the furtherance of the Christian gospel in culture, can be directly related to their historical and theological amnesia. The way back to a sense of ecclesial identity, therefore, is through a creative re-engagement of the sources, norms and practices of theology.

This October, a dream was realized, as Redeemer Pacific College published the first edition of Fideles, an ecumenical academic journal of theology and philosophy, in collaboration with Trinity Western University.

Dr. Christopher Morrissey, who is featured in this first edition, described Fideles as an academic journal “with a twist.”

“Professors contribute articles, but students also contribute poetry and artwork, like photographs,” he explained.

The purpose of the journal, according to Morrissey, is to foster “better understanding and cooperation in the Body of Christ.”

Where does our culture draw its inspiration for art? If art speaks the truth about a civilization, then what does our society’s understanding of art reveal about our values?

If we look back to history and tradition, then we can understand that the purpose and desire of the artist was to represent the divine and sacred. Regardless of culture or religion, any standard of transcendence intrinsically provided the conception that immortality was a characteristic of the universal.

Reason and human conception could not provide insight into the nature of the transcendent and universal, so art was an accepted medium through which to communicate divine revelation. Immortality provided the index which inspired art.

“Poetically man dwells upon this earth” quotes the philosopher Martin Heidegger of the German poet Holderlin. But what sort of poetry do we make in this day and age? What sort of paradigm governs our dwelling upon the Earth?

“I grew up wanting to swashbuckle my way through the Middle East,” Dr. Paul Rowe admits. “I’ve always had a deep and abiding desire to become an international adventurer, probably originally placed in me by having watched Raiders of the Lost Arc as a child.” If anyone is similar to Indiana Jones at Trinity Western University, it’s Dr. Rowe. His childhood desires of adventuring through the deserts of the Middle East have been more than satisfied, as he has extensive experience and interaction with the countries of the Arab world.

Art unifies us experientially with God. The Church must mother painters, architects, musicians, and poets because the work of these people bond us in worship as congregations gather together.

While church buildings, musical arrangements, and holy images create a sacred space that readies the spirit to interact with God, it is the poetic crafting of language that carries the experience of worship. This is seen most obviously in the Bible the communing between God and humanity is done primarily through poetry. The prophets recorded God’s words to the people in poetry, and the poetry of the Psalms formed the prayer book of ancient Israel.

The term ‘postmodern’ was a cussword in my parents’ house and my parents’ church and therefore throughout much of my upbringing. As a term, it signified something foreign and dangerous, something that we had to keep outside and never let in at all costs. Even the acknowledgement of such a thing as postmodernism was a sin and we ought never to mention it, discuss it, or even think about it.

Studying is not always stimulating, and it is not always apparent how what we are learning at Trinity Western University will make us better Christians. What does it mean to be a responsible Christian academic? How can we unify the myriad of activities we participate in throughout the week into what Eugene Peterson calls “a long obedience in the same direction?” How can we avoid approaching our academic pursuits as a purely academic exercise?

In short, how can we use our academics to make us better imitators of Christ? Through his concern to revitalize the dead religion in the 19th century, Danish Lutheran Church philosopher, and theologian Søren Kierkegaard had some interesting insights on these matters.