Rev. Dr. Liz Mosbo VerHage

Pastor. Professor. Consultant. Coach. Author. Wife & Mom.

Do We Change the World?

being CHURCH, practicing THEOLOGY

“What you guys do is so important. The world is run by philosophy and theology, whether people know it or not.”

A friend of mine said this last weekend while we were both at a symposioum on the biblical interpretation of justice. It caught my attention, even though it was a passing comment over lunch. I thought about it while we discussed, sometimes with little clarity, sometimes with tension, other times with great hope, topics related to what is justice,what passages teach us about justice, etc. Do these folks help run and change the world? And I thought about the comment this week, in classes that addressed similar topics and as we talked about the being of God. There is an inherent tension for me in this statement and the surrounding questions – do theological discourse or biblical exegesis ‘matter’? What does ‘matter’ mean – do we jump to judging fields based on their use or utility? Do they really change the world?

John Milbank (a theologian/world changer) writes that every discipline and field are theological – the true danger, then, is that many fields claim to be neutral. Economics, medicine, technology – you name it, these fields all ‘assume a God’ in some way – they all make strong assumptions about life, death, relationships to others and the world, and what is truly God, or what it is that we worship, or put above all else. Milbank calls this “policing the sublime” – saying what use, or utility or realm theologians/churches get to claim they affect, and what realms other fields get to influence. A theological movement called Radical Orthodoxy sees problems with this, and so asks the question of the whole world, where is God here? What claim is being made in this realm about God, obvious or not? How do we create language about that and with what claim to God can any of us come to that conversation?

A corollary to this, according to my Doctrine of God class, is that God should be considered

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utimately useless. Yes – I wrote ‘useless’. It means that in a sense, we as finite creatures should not ‘use’ God for any end – even a good end (like social justice, or building the church, or caring for others, or restoring broken relationships). Of course those activities might come out of following and being in love with and enjoying God, but the concern is that churches often take and label and corral God into being small enough to be ‘useful’ for them. And of course, we serve God, not the other way around. We don’t ever fully know all of what that means, and have to keep working on acknowledging our own gods, our own priorities that put me, or you, or some other thing above God.

But the answer might be that ultimately, God is everywhere – and thoughts of God, or how to replace God, or name and tame God, are real. So the job becomes to see and name those assumptions. To keep God ‘useless’ in one sense – and to let God be God in another sense, so that God can fully change us and our world toward the greatest good that we could never even imagine. That would mean that we theologians are at least naming what we pretend to understand and struggle to define; that we enter the debate on the level of trying to see through the world where God is already present and people are already renaming and replacing God – maybe even as they are saying that they don’t believe in God.

And it might mean that theologians do run the world – that thinking and understanding and (trying) to relate to God are fundamentally the most “useful” activities that we ever do. And it might mean that most of us – maybe all of us – are the theologians.

What do you think?

2 thoughts on “Do We Change the World?”

  1. The issue should not be about us “using” God for any purpose. Instead, it should be about figuring out God’s will and then letting him use us to help carry out that will.

    St. Francis of Assisi’s poem/prayer “Lord Make Me an Instrument” is one good example of the right attitude.(http://www.worldprayers.org/frameit.cgi?/archive/prayers/invocations/lord_make_me_an_instrument.html)

    Certainly, God knew that many would seek out other gods (idols, money, fame, etc.), which is why he gave the commandment “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

  2. I think you’re right, Ryan. I also love that poem – being instruments used by God, not using God ourselves, has always been a helpful image. It also focuses more on the beauty that God wants from each of us, rather than the ‘results,’ as some would argue that music is itself ‘useless.’ Great reminder.

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