wfn.org | Company of Pastors heard the Rev. Leanne Van Dyk

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #6707 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

12-June-2001
GA01147

Company of Pastors heard the Rev. Leanne Van Dyk

by Emett Barfield

LOUISVILLE, June 12 - The Company of Pastors Luncheon featured the Rev.
Leanne Van Dyk, professor of theology at Western Theological Seminary of
Holland ,Mich. and an editor of the publication, Perspective, A Journal of
Reformed Thought. She was introduced as a speaker with the ability to speak
theologically with a great deal of clarity. Her topic for the luncheon was
"Thinking Theologically."

Van Dyk offered a metaphor for thinking theologically that she believes will
"open new windows." Using Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland in which the
Knave of Hearts is tried by the King of Hearts for stealing tarts, and the
Rabbit is told to start at the beginning and go to the end and then stop!,
she suggests that "Thinking theologically is a process that can be imagined
as having a beginning, a middle, and an end."

Her analogy uses the ideas of conception, gestation, birth, adulthood, and
maturity. "This image of life from its very beginning to its full
completion, is a usable image to understand the many things we do when we
think theologically," she declared. Baptism is one's conception into the
faith through God's grace.  Theology gestates in worship and is protected
and nourished in the worship of the community.

Continuing with the analogy, birth is our entrance into the community. Only
in community is thinking theologically possible according to the speaker.
"No formative theology has been written in isolation," she said.

Through childhood we celebrate the treasures of our theology. Children have
excellent images of God, even a parenting God tolerates us in our messy
struggling with theological thinking.

_______________________________________________
pcusaNews mailing list
pcusaNews@pcusa.org

To unsubscribe, go to this web address:
http://pcusa01.pcusa.org/mailman/listinfo/pcusanews