This is Pastoral Theology with Joseph Lear, a newsletter about theology in the local church, where it belongs.
I inhabit a unique space. I am a pastor with a PhD. In my denomination, the Assemblies of God, I am more than unique. I’m a unicorn—almost one of a kind. I’m asked all the time why I didn't go into academia after I finished my doctoral work in New Testament at the University of Aberdeen. There’s a market answer to that question: universities aren’t hiring a lot of full time faculty these days, and especially not ones that look like me.
But to credit the market would be pagan. God told me to go to the local church after my doctoral studies. Through the (indeed miraculous) leading of the Holy Spirit, I ended up in Iowa City, IA where I have led the revitalization of a dying church.
I have never doubted it, and I have only been more convinced 7 years later that theology belongs in the local church. My pentecostal movement has historically had a deep suspicion of higher education. “Isn’t education a killjoy and detached from the devotions of working people?” My educational experience was punctuated with the opposite sentiment: isn’t the local church where the fundies, both liberal and conservative, reside?
I think they’re both wrong.
What I publish here will bring theology to the local church and the local church to theology.
This is good. I agree with you. Thanks for writing!
Not sure how I missed this when you launched it (I saw Marty's recommendation just now on Facebook). Anyway, thanks for doing this; it's work that needs to be done, for sure, and I'm glad you're doing it.