Introduction to Marketplace Theology - Toward a Wholistic Science of Work, Worker and Workplace
“By living, even by dying and being damned, make someone a theologian, not by understanding, reading and speculating.”
Martin Luther[1]
“The spirit of persistence [in prayer] springs from an inward conviction that life is but one single way that leads to the kingdom of God.”
Matthew the Poor[2]
“If you are a theologian you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.”
Evagrius Ponticus (AD 346-399)[3]
My interest in marketplace theology began quite early, without, of course, even having the language to call it “marketplace theology,” and certainly decades before I became a professor of marketplace theology. As a young boy growing up in Toronto, Canada, son of a CEO of a steel fabrication company producing steel strapping for shipping containers, I received a small weekly allowance with which I could go into a store and buy a vanilla Ice cream cone for five cents. I knew that I was exchanging money for something I wanted, a soul need or want, though not yet understanding that behind this simple transaction in a confectionary store lay a whole series of exchanges. A dairy farmer exchanged his milk for money for which he is able to buy feed for his animals and give his daughter a small allowance. There is an amazing list of exchanges internationally in the ancient world in the Lament over Tyre in Ezekiel 27, including the men of Rhodes who “traded with you, and many coastlands were your customers; they paid you with ivory tusks and ebony” (Ezek 27:15). There is a mystery in the marketplace, as Jeff Van Duzer says in his masterful book, Why Business Matters to God. There is what he calls a common grace, through which the farmer, the delivery person, the milk processor, the ice cream manufacturer, the company that makes the cone from wheat products, involving a whole host of persons including packagers, advertisers and transporters until it finally arrives at the confectioner on Yonge Street in Toronto. I have simply exchanged five cents (yes that is what it cost) for a treat. But we are built for such exchanges. We are all individuals, unique. You have something I need and I have something that you need and we must exchange to survive and thrive. We are all uniquely gifted and we are built for community. And we work communally. Marketplace theology explores the meaning, the God-given purpose, the spirituality and the practice of that young boy buying his ice cream—and the work involved. Exchange is business. Years later I had the opportunity to see how exchange works in a village marketplace in East Africa.
For ten years my wife and I lived in a village of three hundred in Kenya. Our little house was right next to a public marketplace. People would arrange their tomatoes on the ground in an attractive way, piling them up in pyramids, alongside others selling used clothing on temporary racks, and behind them a row of dukas, small shops, where you could buy milk, bread, Ono, and malaria drugs. Old people came to the marketplace daily to catch up on the news and to exchange values. For be sure values are exchanged in the marketplace even in the huge office towers where transactions of millions, even billions of dollars, take place daily, as well as the transactions over coffee breaks and water cooler stops. And the global marketplace means that before I have finished breakfast I have literally eaten my way around the world. But also, before I have finished breakfast I have engaged in a serious problem, the haves and the have-nots of the world, the principalities and powers and the spirituality of the system by which I can enjoy my toasted crumpet, peanut butter, jam and tea. And just where did that tea come from?
This is a serious book on the marketplace, serious because we are exploring the meaning of human exchange and the work involved in this exchange. But further it is serious because it involves study and research. Marketplace theology, as all good theology helps us make sense of our lives in this world. But it does more. It enables us to practice our work righteously, in a way that is upbuilding to our near and far neighbours. Finally, it shows us that we take our souls to work, so there is a spiritual theology of the marketplace, as we encounter the principalities and powers in the marketplace, and God himself. Indeed, as the late Eugene Peterson, pastor to pastors has written, “I’m prepared to contend that the primary location for spiritual formation is the workplace”[4] So in developing a marketplace theology that is fully biblical we are eschewing the modern fragmentation of theology into systematic theology, moral theology, historical theology, spiritual theology and applied theology. We are attempting to integrate theology, as it was in the West in the Middle Ages, as habitus, a disposition to the soul, or as Ellen Charry so cogently shows, theology was meant to be sapiential, which means providing wisdom for life. In reading many of the ancient theologians she concluded that “taking the doctrines of the Christian faith seriously was assumed to change how we think and act—to remake us…. They were interested in forming us as excellent persons…. They understood human happiness to be tied to virtuous character, which in turn comes from knowing God.”[5] But there is a problem with this.
The Problem of Doing Theology Today
Charry put it this way:
Sapiential truth is unintelligible to the modern secularized construal of truth. Modern epistemology [the study of the nature, origin, scope and limits of knowledge] not only fragmented truth itself, privileging correct information over beauty and goodness, it relocated truth in facts and ideas. The search for truth in the modern scientific sense is a cognitive enterprise that seeks correct information useful to the improvement of human comfort and efficiency rather than an intellectual activity employed for spiritual growth. Knowing the truth no longer implied loving it, and being transformed by it, because the truth no longer brings the knower to God but to use information to subdue nature. Knowing became limited to being informed about things, not as these are things of God but as they stand (or totter) on their own feet. The classical notion that truth leads us to God simply ceased to be intelligible and came to be viewed with suspicion.[6]
This is the case in the West. In the East there are other challenges to developing a marketplace theology for Asia. My colleague Bruce Nie from Qingdao, China has expressed it this way:
In the East, Chinese culture represented by the Confucian tradition did not seek to understand the world from a metaphysical [more than physical] approach. Instead, it focused on seeking the wisdom of life from a social and ethical perspective, emphasizing the connection among all things. The harmony among heaven, earth and human beings is the telos to pursue for all human cultivation. This Eastern wisdom is undoubtedly a great complement and balance to the epistemology of Western metaphysics and the epistemology of empirical analysis. However, in the Chinese culture represented by the Confucian tradition, the lack of the sense of transcendence and its total this-worldness leave the society fallen into the swamp of static harmony which cannot generate the critical power of moral vision to facilitate the social transformation towards the ultimate goodness.[7]
But earlier in the Western world Martin Luther confessed that theology was wrung out of life and was to be lived as expressed in his celebrated statement concerning the qualifications for a true theologian: “living, or rather dying and being damned make a theologian, not understanding, reading or speculating.”[8] A little later the Puritan, Williams Perkins, defined theology as the “science of living blessedly forever.”[9] It is a “science” (it involves study, discovery, investigation), “of living” (not of some esoteric reality or religion), “blessedly” (not mere existence but flourishing in the light of God’s person, presence and purpose) and “forever” (not just for this life, though some of our work will survive beyond the grave and we will work in the new heaven and new earth). So, for those who say, “everyone is talking about marketplace theology but no one knows what it is,” I offer an adaptation of Perkins’ cryptic definition as follows: Marketplace theology is the science of working in the world blessedly forever. Marketplace theology is a focused expression of biblical and contextual theology. But let me amplify this last comment both negatively and positively.
What Marketplace Theology is NOT
Marketplace theology is not a mere segmented sphere of application in the so-called Applied Theology division of theology, an unfortunate result of the Enlightenment in Western theology that resulted in splitting wholistic theology up into systematic theology, historical theology, moral theology, spiritual theology and applied theology, the last being the “Cinderella of the seminary.” All theology was meant to be applied and in application there is further revelation. As such marketplace theology requires the de-Westernization of theology. We observe that the “faith and work” movement has become to a large extent a “how-to” movement” exemplified by some forms of “Business As Mission.” We wish to contribute through the Institute for Marketplace Transformation (IMT) to the larger movement our grasp of marketplace theology as understanding (orthodoxy), motivation (orthopathy) and practice (orthopraxy) in the workplace.
Marketplace theology is not a mere compensatory theology, as has been the case with a theology of the laity,[10] compensating for the clerical and churchly paradigms of theology. As such marketplace theology must include “street theology,” that is a down-to-earth and “bottom up” expressions of the meaning of our work so that street sweepers, blue collar workers, homemakers as well as by professionals can be grasped and transformed by it. But neither is marketplace theology genitive theology with the emphasis on the word “of” (e.g. the systematic theology of the marketplace) as has been the case with the theology of the laity. So what is it?
What Marketplace Theology Is
Marketplace theology engages the whole of biblical theology in the understanding and practicing of work, by the worker and in the workplace. Accordingly, marketplace theology engages the Triune God as the ultimate worker and humankind made in God’s image as co-creators or sub-creators to work and worship in community. It includes understanding creation as made by God to be stewarded by humankind in both its material and immaterial existence including the principalities and powers that have become fallen, intransigent and taken on a life of their own. So the powers affect work, worker and workplace forming an anti-kingdom. But central in the New Testament is the good news of the true kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the integrating theme in the Bible and marketplace theology shows how we can participate in the partially come and “fully to come” kingdom of God through our work, flourishing now and forever.
Jesus the divine missionary came to earth as a tradesperson who was also the Son of God and the Son of Man, having laid down his life for our redemption but now reigns as Son of Man at the right hand of God the Father anticipating the full coming of his kingdom in his second coming. The church as the people of God is the sign, servant and sacrament of the kingdom. And the church in its scattered life, as well as the gathered life, does the work of God and serves the King and the kingdom. Mission, especially marketplace mission originates not in the church but in the Triune God who is Sender, Sent and Sending, sending the people of God into the world on behalf of God and God’s grace and kingdom. The Spirit empowers believers to undertake the “work of the Lord” in this world, motivating them to work for God and neighbour and equipping them with the fruit of the Spirit. Then there is the final end including the second coming of Jesus, resurrection of the body, the judgment of all, the consummation of the kingdom, the new heaven and new earth and the vital energetic rest of the people of God in a multicultural, multi-language community where some of the fruits of this life will be found and we will work unhindered by the curse. But here is something we are proposing as a corrective of the bifurcated, compartmentalized model of theology that has emerged in the Western world.
Marketplace Theology is Integral (Wholistic)
Marketplace theology combines head (orthodoxy—ortho for “right” or “true” and doxy for “glory”), heart (orthopathy—meaning “right passion”) and hand (orthopraxy—right “praxis” or “action”). In embracing orthodoxy marketplace theology engages in research of right worship and true glory to God in our work. It regards liturgy, literally as “the work of the people,” simultaneously to be the work of worship and worship through work. In embracing orthopathy, passion like the prophets who were gripped by the heart of God, marketplace theology recovers the Western medieval synthesis of theology as habitus, the disposition of the soul or heart, the more than rationality of theology, as represented by the Eastern church where a theologian is one who prays. And in embracing orthopraxy marketplace theology is implicitly practical and must be embodied and done, but practised in conformity to the action and practice of God. So, a marketplace theologian needs to work in the world and reflect prayerfully on that work, not merely in the academy. In this way wholeness is recovered.
The following is admittedly an oversimplification: In the Western Church a theologian is someone who thinks. In the Eastern Church, the Orthodox Christian community, a theologian is someone who prays.[11] And in the Asian church a theologian is someone who acts.[12] Head, heart and hands but these are largely kept separated. To the church fathers and mothers in the Middle Ages of the West, and earlier leaders in the East, nothing could be further from the truth in the rationalized systematized theology that has emerged in the West. So says Tomas Spidlik in The Spirituality of the Christian East, “spirituality is lived dogma.”[13] Christian theology, then, is the pondered, prayed and practiced study of God, God’s purpose and God’s presence. And marketplace theology is the pondered, prayed and practiced study of God, God’s purpose and God’s presence in our work, the worker and the workplace. Marketplace theology is not just as application of biblical truth to life, but itself is an arena of revelation. Matthew the Poor, an Egyptian monk, quoted above, said that “life is but one single way to the kingdom of God.”[14]
Thus, for most of the globe the theological task has been short-circuited. We in the West have exported the distortion of a bifurcated, compartmentalized theology and many if not most Asian theologians teaching in seminaries have been theologically circumcised in the West. The result is this: we have theology divided into systematic theology, moral theology, spiritual theology, historical theology and finally, to the Cinderella of the seminary, practical or applied theology. Who, I ask, would want to be a professor of applied theology exclusively in that system? But, and I say this as an “applied theologian” I certainly would not want to be a professor of unapplied theology. Why?
The reason is this: Christian theology based on the Bible is like love for God (Mark 12:30). It is wholistic engaging head, heart and hands. This same wholistic pattern also exists in the kingdom of God which is not just thriving spiritually but socially, emotionally, vocationally and mentally (Luke 4:18-19; Isaiah 61:1-7). Usually, when we do theology today we divide the human person up: first the brains, then the heart, and finally the hands. Why cannot we start, for example, with hands as a way “in” and proceed to the heart and head? Or why not start with the heart, with prayer, and proceed to the head and hands? Or why not comprehensively engage head, heart and hands together? This is one of the reasons I have subtitled this essay “Toward a Wholistic Science of Work, Worker and Workplace.” Spiritual theology, for example, is not an add-on but a dimension of the whole. And practical theology is not, as Chan suggests, “more broadly concerned with action in the world”[15] but part of the whole. We will explore the theology of doing later. But that, however, is not the only problem with the fragmentation of theology.
Earlier I quoted as a basic definition of theology the Puritan William Perkins: “Theology is the science of living blessedly forever.”[16] And I have suggested that marketplace theology is the science of working (our this worldly dimension of life, not an esoteric supra-terrestrial reality), blessedly (in the light of God’s presence and purpose for humankind) and this is forever (and not just for this life for we shall work in the New Heaven and New Earth). In a similar way the Puritan William Ames defined theology as “the doctrine of living unto God,”[17] marketplace theology being a part of this. It is not even, as Simon Chan suggests in his magnificent volume on Spiritual Theology, a book which incidentally reflects an Asian perspective, that spiritual theology starts with the mystery of the faith and “leaves the theological formulations to provide the backdrop.”[18] In a footnote on this order of things Chan takes a leaf out of Michael Polanyi and says that systematic theology attends from the nonrational to the rational, while spiritual theology attends from the rational to the nonrational.[19] But Chan rightly goes on to state that “spiritual theology seeks to discover the transcendent within every sphere of life and every area of experience.”[20] So, to summarize, Martin Luther once said, “True theology is practical…speculative theology belongs to the devil in hell.”[21] But is there an integrating principle, experience and practice for theology in general and marketplace theology in particular?
The lack of a single and integrating theme is everywhere manifest. Thus, spiritual theology, for example, gets dissected into ascetic theology (from the Greek word askein, “to train”—spiritual development or a kind of “practical soul work” through a systematic and disciplined method), and mystical theology (seeking union with God and engaging in the contemplation of the supernatural dimensions of life with God). Further delineations of spiritual theology include the charismatic approach (concerned with power encounters, with signs and wonders, what Jonathan Edwards calls the “surprising works of God”[22]) and the evangelical approach (so designated as arising from a conversionist approach to spiritual theology, focusing on the gospel understood as new birth and a way to heaven.[23] That being said, I am grateful to Simon Chan for his emphasis on the two basic components of Christian spiritual theology: the Spirit (note: this is not referring to the human spirit but to the Holy Spirit) and the Word of God. Consequentially, spirituality is Spirit-uality, which means life and work in the Spirit. To this we will return shortly. And, secondly, the Word. And we discover in the Word of God a single integrating principle in the kingdom of God, the effective and transformative, life-giving rule of God in all of creation and life, bringing human flourishing and the thriving of all creation under the beautiful rule of God.
That kingdom starts in Genesis with the enlistment of the first human beings to bring in the kingdom through their rule and their attempts to “fill the earth” with the glory of God through their presence and work. They were to take the sanctuary—a place of beauty, safety and prosperity—into the world. God says in effect, “Work with me and in harmony with my purposes in bringing in the kingdom, developing the potential of creation and bringing human flourishing everywhere.” In calling humankind to “rule” (Gen 1:28) over everything except themselves God made Adam and Eve, and their descendants vice-regents over everything on earth. Regents serve the monarch when the king or queen is out of the country or too young to serve. Bruce Waltke in his grand Old Testament Theology expresses it this way: “Genesis 1 confers this authoritative status of God’s image to all human beings, so that we are all kings, given the responsibility to rule as God’s vice-regents and high priests on earth.”[24] That is, the man and woman were to bring in God’s kingdom, to exhibit his rule “with power to control and regulate it, to harness its clear potential, a tremendous concentration of power in the hands of puny man! What authority he thus possesses to regulate the course of nature, to be a bane or a blessing to the world!” says William Dumbrell, former Dean at Regent College.[25] Then comes Jesus who not only saw the kingdom as the integrating principle of his entire ministry of teaching and doing good through life-giving signs of the kingdom having come but Jesus announced in his home synagogue that the kingdom has come in himself (Luke 4:16-21; Isaiah 61:1-7). So, for good reason the early church fathers used the term autobasileia (the kingdom of God in his own person) when referring to Jesus. But the kingdom that is simultaneously here and now, and not-here but coming (in fullness)—this is the mystery of the kingdom and how hard it is to live with mystery! The kingdom will be consummated at the second coming of Jesus. Consequentially the last book of the New Testament provisions our imagination, prayers and work with the hope that “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever” (Rev 11:15). We will be exploring a kingdom perspective on marketplace theology[26] wholistically engaging head (orthodoxy), heart (orthopathy) and hands (orthopraxy). But now we need to ask how marketplace theology is to be done.
How Marketplace Theology is Done
Marketplace theology involves the intellectual truth of the marketplace, the spirituality of living and working in the marketplace and the application of biblical truth to situations in the workplace, both ethical and relational. This application includes mission, morality (ethics), meaning and mysticism (spirituality). But it is not just application because doing is revelational. So, some of the truth of marketplace theology is intrinsic to the actual experience of work. Consequentially, marketplace theology needs to be done from “top down” and “bottom up”. “Top down” means starting with “top down” revelation of God and God’s purpose in Scripture, in Jesus, as well as in history, leading to practice. But marketplace theology must be done with “bottom up” approaches, beginning with practice through using case studies, work experiences and workplace situations as the starting point not just the end point. So the “bottom up” approach to doing marketplace theology could be partially crafted through narrative and story, seeing the intersection of the divine story with our own stories.
Marketplace theology involves translation, making it clear and understandable to people in the marketplace and in various cultures what is God’s purpose for their life and work. But is not just translation that is required. Marketplace theology involves contextualization, enabling people to understand how God’s purpose for work, worker and workplace fits into as well as challenges the particular culture of the workplace and in the manifold contexts of the globe. But in this respect we need to learn together what marketplace theology means globally, with each cultural expression enriching the whole. So, Paul says to the Ephesians that it is only “together with all the Lord’s holy people” (Eph 3:18, emphasis mine) that we can know the fullness of Christ as it relates to work, worker and workplace—head, heart and hand together. The Asian contribution to marketplace theology, for example, to the West would combine “the need to be we” (the corporateness that is implicit in Asian culture and life) with the Western emphasis on individualism and “the need to be me” leading to, at the intersection, individual and corporate flourishing in the work and workplace. And for what good end do we do this?
The Benefit of Marketplace Theology
Marketplace theology is good for the body, soul and mind. For believers this theology means integration, bringing work and faith together for the glory of God and the benefit of neighbours. Marketplace theology has benefit for human flourishing, marketplace mission, spiritual formation, motivation for daily work and ethical working. It is good because it tells us why we work, who we work for, how to work well and what is the end of our work, in other words, whether our work will last beyond our lifetime. Through it we get “the big view” of how our measly efforts to offer goods or services fits into the grand scheme of things. In short we gain a worldview for work: truly a work-view. It is good because it explains why we feel such resistance and sweat in the workplace and how to grapple with it. It is good because anyone can do it. Indeed lots of people are doing it every day without knowing it. But finally it is good because it links us with God who is a worker and came as a tradesperson in Jesus. But it is not just good in that God models good work. We actually get linked with God who is a worker. That link can be in spiritual formation, in prayer, in joy, in play and in the grace that God gives. And how is marketplace theology good for not-yet-believers? They get a taste of the kingdom of God. A good taste!
So, if you ponder (head), pray (heart) and practice (hands) about your work, as a worker and about the workplace you are a marketplace theologian. Let’s see how this works out in work, worker and workplace and develop a theology of doing in forthcoming articles.
Note: Copies of this article may be made for research purposes but they may not be published.
Copyright, R. Paul Stevens 2021
References:
[1] D.M. Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (65 vols: Weimer: Verlag Hermann Bohlaus Nochfolger, 1983-1966), WA 5.163.28-29; “Vivendo, immo moriendo et damnando fit theologus, non intelligendo, legendo aut speculando.” Quoted in Alister E. McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross: Martin Luther’s Theological Breakthrough, 2nd edition (Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 210-11.
[2] Matthew the Poor, Orthodox Prayer Life (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 164.
[3] Tomas Spidlik, The Spirituality of the Christian East: A Systematic Handbook (Kalamazoo, MI., Cistercian Publications, 1986), 327.
[4] Eugene H. Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005), 127.
[5] Ellen T. Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), vii. Charry read Paul, Matthew, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Julian of Norwich, and Calvin and concluded that “the divisions of the modern theological curriculum began making less and less sense to me. I could no longer distinguish between apologetics from catechesis, or spirituality from ethics, or pastoral theology. I no longer understood systematic or dogmatic theology apart from all of these. In the older texts, evangelism, catachesis, moral exhortation, dogmatic exegesis, pastoral care and apologegtics were all happening at the same time because the authors were speaking to a whole person.” (viii) She suggests that the modern concept of truth and knowledge developed in the Western world in stages. “Locke separated faith from knowledge, denying the importance of trust as an element in truth. Hume insisted on the repeatability of events as a sign of their truth and disallowed inferential reasoning, tentativeness and discerning judgment. Kant pointed out that the conditions for knowing lie within the mind itself and that human knowing cannot transcend the limits of time and space within which the mind operates.” (10) Giving examples Charry notes that “for Paul the cross and sealing of the Holy Spirit change a person’s status before God, dignifying those who had been aliens or sinners. For Athanasius, the resurrection destroyed the fear of death, empowering people to take God, rather than reifications of human sin masquerading as pagan gods, as a model for human striving. For Augustine, knowing the triune God should promote human dignity and uplifted behavior based on the principle of the imago Dei.” (18) She argues for the “virtue-shaping function of the divine pedagogy of theological treatises,” calling these treatises “aretegenic,” drawing on the ancient Greek word arete which usually means conducive to virtue (19).
[6] Charry, By the Renewing of Your Minds, 236.
[7] Email, June 1, 2021.
[8] D.M. Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimer, 1993-), V.163.28-9, quoted in A.E. McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross: Martin Luther’s Theological Breakthrough (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 152.
[9] A Golden Chain (1592), in I. Breward (ed.), The Courtenay Library of Reformation Classics. III. The Work of William Perkins (Appleford, UK: The Sutton Courtenay Press, 1970), 177 (169-259).
[10] See R. Paul Stevens, The Abolition of the Laity: Vocation, Work and Ministry in a Biblical Perspective (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster Press, 1999), 6.
[11] Evagrius said, “If you are a theologian you will pray truly. And if you pray truly, you are a theologian.” Tomas Spidlik, The Spirituality of the Christian East: A Systematic Handbook (Kalamazoo, MI., Cistercian Publications, 1986), 327. Spidlik notes that in the Christian East contemplation was crystalized in a definition based in a false etymology: theoria meant theo oran, to see God in everything (327).
[12] I realize that this is a blanket statement and only offer it as a viewpoint. But in my experience when I lecture in Asia the usual critique, not from the formal theologians who have largely been educated in the West, but from working people, is that my presentation is not practical. Interestingly the Parable of the Ten Minas is a case in point. The Greek Word used for “Put this money to work” (Luke 19:13) pragmateusasthe, is the origin of the English word “pragmatic.” The Chinese language itself is pictoral and practical. And Confucian culture is a pragmatic attempt to order society in a harmonious way.
[13] Spidlik, The Spirituality of the Christian East, 37.
[14] Matthew the Poor, Orthodox Prayer Life (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 164.
[15] Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 19.
[16] William Perkins, A Golden Chain (1592), in I. Breward ed.), The Courtenay Library of Reformational Classics. III. The Work of William Perkins (Appleford, UK: The Sutton Courtenay Press, 1970), 177 (169-259).
[17] Simon Chan, Spiritual Theology: A Systematic Study of the Christian Life (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), 16, note 6. Chan notes that this was the opening sentence of William Ames’s highly influential work, The Marrow of Sacred Divinity, published in 1642, 240.
[18] Chan, Christian Spirituality, 19.
[19] Following Michael Polanyi Chan suggests that while systematic theology attends from the nonrational to the rational, while spiritual theology attends from the rational to the nonrational. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966), 10, Chan, Spiritual Theology, 241 note 16.
[20] Chan, Spiritual Theology, 19.
[21] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, ed. T.G. Tappert (55 vols, St. Louis: Concordia, 1955-86), LIV, 22, quoted in R.L. Maddox, “The Recovery of Theology as a Practical Discipline”, Theological Studies 51 (1990), (650-72) 654.
[22] Quoted in Chan, Spiritual Theology, 38.
[23] Sadly this is what many people think of as the Gospel of Jesus—a ticket to heaven, rather than the very gospel Jesus actually proclaimed—which is the good news of the kingdom of God, God’s life-giving rule which has already begun, in the here and now, but also not yet and coming at the second coming of Jesus. See R. Paul Stevens, The Kingdom in Working Clothes: The Marketplace and the Reign of God (Eugene, OR.: Wipf & Stock, forthcoming).
[24] Bruce K. Waltke, Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical and Thematic Approach (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 218.
[25] William J. Dumbrell, “Creation, Covenant and Work,” Crux, September 1988, Vol XXIV, No 3, 17.
[26] My forthcoming book on this subject is R. Paul Stevens, The Kingdom in Working Clothes; The Marketplace and the Reign of God (Eugene OR: Wipf & Stock, forthcoming).
