Education and confidence

Ashley Beck

All this should be of concern to the whole Church. The Pope’s words are clear – theologians have a service to carry out ‘as part of the Church’s saving mission’. Of course theologians get many things wrong, as the Pope realises, especially if we are ‘desk-bound’ – of course we are often desk-bound because of mushrooming bureaucratic tasks and cutbacks in administrative support. If academic theology is seen as divorced from the life of the worshipping Christian community, and if what we say is frankly unintelligible, then we are in trouble. But this does not make theology irrelevant: the search for truth and the necessity to oppose falsehood, is greater than ever.

Good theology, rooted in Christian life, is needed above all to give the disciples of Jesus Christ confidence – not simply Church leaders, but all of us. The importance of mission and evangelisation

means that everyone needs to have confidence in an era when religious belief is constantly questioned, where particularly in countries with a Christian background nothing can be taken for granted. It is true in relation to so many crises both in the life of the Church and in our world.

So, for example, in the abuse scandals in the Church, panic and defensiveness leading to terrible decisions have their root in a bad theology of the Church. What is usually called a societas perfecta (‘perfect society’) model of the Church is really incapable of facing the reality of serious sinfulness within the community. If you see such a Church suddenly as being imperfect when you have always believed it is perfect, the whole edifice can collapse like a pack of cards. Or again, if you have an insecure theological grasp about the Church’s teachings about international relations, or about war and peace, you will founder and have little to say in the face of the rise of populist nationalism and the wars which this so often brings about. This is all made worse by a wilful ignorance, a dismissal of theology and theologians; people often glory in their ignorance and are not interested in learning more. For some clergy, the problem is compounded by a condescending and patronising attitude to laypeople.

This may seem a rather gloomy way of marking the tenth anniversary of Francis’ election. But his call for theologians to be appreciated and encouraged not only offers some hope; marginalised or thrown out of institutional academic life, perhaps we will need to join with others in doing theology at the margins, open to innovative ways of teaching and learning, particularly with those who have been left out of higher education, those who juggle theological study with family life and an increasingly insecure work environment. In this our journal will play its part.