Methods
Well, it’s nearly 90 degrees outside and I haven’t posted a word since February. Time flies when you’re marinating in Systematic Theology. I didn’t have braincell to spare for this blog, but the semester is done, summer is here, and I will be sharing what I was working on over the last semester. Below is a paper I wrote in response to the prompt:
“How methods of systematic theology relate to our understanding of the relationship between God and the human person.”
We begin and end in Scripture, which we acknowledge as the vital source, like water. Consider the phrase “one never steps in the same river twice.” The source is alive; so are we.
“‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’” He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40
And so if theology is faith seeking understanding, then faithful methods must first involve all resources available to us; heart, soul, and mind. Further, the methodology must be motivated by love: of God, neighbor and self. Finally, I believe our theology must reflect the theme of integration we see again and again in scripture; God is making all things, all beings, all stories, new, compelling and unified in Godself. For this nuanced, dynamic and justice-oriented perspective, I turn to intersectional, liberation and narrative theologies.
“‘Scripture alone’ thus does not mean that one can read the Bible independently of tradition, reason, or experience.” (Hegstad 65) Utility of all available resources, heart, soul and mind, seems to me reflected best in intersectional theology. If we believe that God created all and is interested in having a relationship with humanity, then our theology must reflect the very diversity which God created and called good. “If we apply the logics of intersectionality, we can think of God as multiple, divergent, and contradictory, encompassing the totality of diverse experience. In this way, God is both/and, more rich and complex and nuanced than our either/or theologies that posit a fixed and singular identity for God.” (Kim & Shaw 67) Without intersectional theology, we “have missed out on a great deal we could have learned about God and ourselves by ignoring and subordinating the experiences in theological reflections of most of humanity.” (Kim & Shaw 3) Dominated by white, hetero, wealthy and able-bodied perspectives, we have imagined a small god, and the cost has been great, both theologically and materially, with injustice inflicted upon human beings outside of the single axis view.
Intersectionality must be undertaken wary of what Douglas identifies as “vulgar relativism.” “‘Oh, well, you can find whatever you want in the Bible so my view is just as valid as yours,’ is an example of such a pronouncement…In essence, an ‘anything goes’ approach to the Bible implies that it is just as appropriate to use the Bible as a weapon of terror and dehumanization as it is to use it as a source for empowerment and liberation.” (Douglas 98) Intersectional and liberation theologies together lead us to anticipate and resist arguments which seek to derail, rather than engage, in nuanced dialog. In an arena popularly dominated by personal experience and sentimental overemphasis upon tradition, we demand reason. As Kim & Shaw point out, “Intersectionality makes power visible,” and “in intersectional thinking, this analysis is always biased toward justice.” (Kim & Shaw 7) Revelations of earthly power and the insistence towards justice are, as demonstrated in Scripture, by the life and execution of Jesus, inevitably going to be met with resistance.
Our theology must be based in love. Let us consider love of self: as a non-male theologian, my personhood has been demeaned by the Church. Intersectional and liberation theologies permit me question the ways in which the dominant white supremacist patriarchal theology does not reflect my own experience. Anna Mercedes points out, “The doctrine of sin in traditional theology has been short-sighted, conveying a uniform human experience of sin based on the norms of patriarchal masculinity, and thus overlooking the ways in which many women and men sin through perpetual diffusion of self, rather than self-aggrandization.”(Streufert 91) I find in my own reality little need for reminders of humility and servitude; they are plentiful under patriarchy. But I am a sinner, and seek understanding about what sin looks like in my reality.
When I consider diffusion of self and the ways I have failed to live honestly and wholly in my identity, I discover my sin and thus can be liberated from it. These fuller readings are only possible when dynamic perspectives engage with scripture. “Many gender non-conforming and transgender Christians have made the challenging journey from self-doubt to self- affirmation, from discontinuity to continuity,” writes Lowe. “In the midst of overwhelming personal and structural oppression they know that loving God and loving the world must be woven together with faithfully loving (hesed) one’s self.” (Lowe 31) Christ’s message of liberation is indeed for all people, but from what, specifically, one must be liberated is subjective to each person’s dynamic reality.
Now love of neighbor: as Dean Petersen has said, “Theology is done in community.” Stories, too, exist in community, and “function in our family life to nurture –and even establish–our sense of who we are and how we ought to act.” (Streufert 58) Narratives shape families, communities, cultures, nations. Human beings, to an extent greater than any other creature on earth, have the power to shape their reality, and we do so based on our narratives. In the wider, dominant cultural understanding Christianity in America (perhaps American Christianity is the more apt name) we see reflected the individualistic and capitalist culture informing theology: an emphasis on the heart and soul, on sentimentality rooted in tradition and in personal, often euphoric, or at least positive, experience.
There is little curiosity or application of reason in this dominant understanding: in fact, we frequently encounter anti-intellectualism, where doubt and questioning are made taboo. Without conscious investigation into the narratives and their meanings which shape our realities, we are at risk, as Caryn D. Riswold points out, of forgetting the objectified nature of human constructs. “This means that we as human beings forget that we made the stuff, and it becomes externally real, confronting us as its own objective reality.”(Streufert 49) This is how systems born in narratives of white supremacy and patriarchy create a positive feedback loop of material success, a prosperity gospel for those in power, while the suffering of the oppressed becomes material evidence of their unworthiness. Our love must be thorough: we seek to liberate both the oppressed and the oppressor, as both are caught in sin.
Despite its history of harm and weaponization, Christian faith persists. This tension between unlikeliness and inevitability, is reflected both in the narratives we read in Scripture, and in the lives of the faithful who find new life within death. “Reading is not just done for devotion, but for inspiration. It is not just inspiration, but to reindoctrinate oneself. It is a political act to read the Bible.” (Weems) We are, as Scripture readers, empowered by engagement with story. Theologians then have a responsibility to enter into dialog with death-giving faith narratives, not as a reactionary but as a people motivated by love of God, neighbor and self. We are called to seek understanding beyond the dominant narrative of our culture and to tell life-giving stories.
We believe in a living God and the promise of inevitability of God’s kingdom. This means we are ever unsettled, ever becoming, in-progress. We do not hope to accumulate certainty but depth and openness, flexibility, capacity, trust. We return always to the well and refreshment of scripture because “...the fundamental source of knowledge of God and of his salvific action lies in the Bible.. the source of such knowledge lies in the revelation in Jesus Christ.” (Hegstad 65) Scripture is the source, the stream from which we can drink endlessly, but we do so aware that each time we come, we arrive with all we carry. We approach the source with varied needs: sustenance, cleansing, reflecting, clarity. Our theology aims to be as alive as the God and creation it seeks to understand. The living waters remain steadfast and living; our reflections change.
Sources
Hegstad, Harold. God the World and Hope: An Introduction to Christian Dogmatics
Kim, Grace Ji-Sun & Shaw, Susan M. Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide
Douglas, Kelly Brown. “Marginalized People, Liberating Perspectives: A Womanist Approach to Biblical Interpretation” in I Found God in Me: A Womanist Biblical Hermeneutics Reader. Edited by Mitzi J. Smith, Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2015.
Dean Petersen, Lecture, February 26, 2026
Lowe, Mary Elise. From the Same Spirit: Receiving the Theological Gifts of Transgender Christians
Streufert, Mary. Transformative Lutheran Theologies
Mercedes, Anna. “Who are you? Christ and the Imperative of Subjectivity”
Riswold, Caryn D. “Inhabiting Paradox: God and Feminist Theology for the Third Wave”
Kvam, Kristen E. “God’s Heart Revealed in Eden: Luther on the Character of God and the Vocation of Humanity”
Weems, Renita J. Holmes-Todd Lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vymRJC0R7U