THEOLOGY

AS A

WAY OF LIFE

ON TEACHING AND LEARNING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

ADAM NEDER

a division of Baker publishing Gruop

Grand Rapids, Michigan

© 2019 by Adam Neder

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Neder, Adam, author.

Title: Theology as a way of life : on teaching and learning the Christian faith / Adam Neder.

Description: Grand Rapids, MI : Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019006258 | ISBN 9780801098789 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Theology—Study and teaching.

Classification: LCC BV4020 .N38 2019 | DDC 230.071—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019006258

978-1-5409-6245-4 (casebound)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

For Reginald McLelland

and Bruce McCormack

CONTENTS

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Identity

2. Knowledge

3. Ethos

4. Danger

5. Conversation

Bibliography

Index

ABBREVIATIONS

CD Church Dogmatics

DBWE Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works

ET Evangelical Theology: An Introduction

KJN Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks

rev. revised translation

INTRODUCTION

This book began as a paper for the annual Karl Barth conference at Princeton Theological Seminary in 2012. The theme of the conference was Barth’s book Evangelical Theology, which contains the lectures he gave during his only visit to the United States.1 As I was thinking about what I might say, I began to notice that Barth’s reflections on the task of writing Christian theology could be slightly adjusted to illuminate the task of teaching Christian theology.2 Having spent the previous decade struggling to formulate a compelling theological and spiritual understanding of teaching, this came as a welcome relief. As a young professor I knew I needed guidance, but my search for books that could help me think seriously about teaching Christian theology proved far more difficult than I had imagined, which seemed strange to me. When so much theological education happens in classrooms, why haven’t theologians written persuasively about what goes on there? Shouldn’t we have numerous good books about teaching theology? We have good books about education and teaching in general, about Christian liberal arts education, and about the history of theological education, but none written by a contemporary theologian about the art of teaching Christian theology. Yet without a compelling theological ...