Inside Baseball

This is going to be an ironic post in that it will be meaningful to just a handful out there, but here goes.

This is a note to Christian authors, speakers, pastors, preachers, teachers, or anyone who does anything to explain scripture to the non-professional.

Folks, do not use 'scriptural' as an excuse to ignore context, culture, anthropologic, historical, scientific and literary criticism.

The problem we run into in the world of Christian theology is that 99% of what is written, spoken, and taught is inside baseball. Whether you are a Calvinist or a Wesleyan, an Anabaptist or a Confessional Church adherent means little to the non-Christian observer.

I have the unfortunate status of being a male that only casually watches, and/or understands most sports. There is a tradition surrounding these games, an inside language, and a roster of Saints that I have little appreciation for. I keep up with baseball just enough so as to be able to insult the St. Louis Cardinals in front of my friend Mike. I enjoy watching the Chiefs, but I had to ask a more sport-astute friend the other day what in the world a 'shotgun' formation was. The bottom line, there is little within the cosmology and vocabulary of sports that makes sense to me outside of the sports realm.

Christian writing and academics can often end up being a lot like sports in this regard. There are passionate followers who have some degree of adeptness in understanding and interpreting the Christianese language. The fact that this language makes little-to-no sense beyond the boundaries of the Christian world seems to baffle those who are firmly within the Christian paradigm.

There is a need for theology (Christian talk about God) that is firmly rooted in scripture. Scripture is our main foundation for knowing God and for living a life dedicated to Jesus Christ. I have increasingly become aware over my adult life of those who use 'scripture' not as a foundation for engagement with the world, but as an excuse for distancing themselves from it altogether.

This is inside baseball in its purest form, when the observation of a subject becomes its own truth claim. In this case it would be, "my interpretation of scripture is correct, because scripture itself is correct." While certainly we don't hold equally the disciplines I mentioned in the beginning as it relates to the authority of scripture the act of dismissing them outright is foolish and lazy.

If you want to engage your faith (and teach a faith) in a way that maintains any kind of intellectual integrity (and ability to connect with those outside of the faith) we must be willing to engage and participate in subjects that have an impact on how we understand and engage scripture. While saying, 'the Bible says it, and I believe it' scores us points within the church without knowing why we believe it no one else will care. After all, is not that the point, that others would begin to care about what we as Christians care about?