THEOLOGY AND WORSHIP

As the title suggests, my main interest lies in establishing the relationship between theology and worship, which may appear to be extremely ambitious, given that while worship is understood today as a church activity by all Christians, theology is primarily relegated to be an academic activity by only a selected few, or primarily by those with church responsibilities. To engage in worship is expected from all while to engage in a rigorous study of God is not. To a certain degree, church-goers are excused in expecting a level of profundity from ministers of the Word, so that ministers are by default required to engage in rigorous training and education on behalf of the people. But this popular expectation is still not a valid excuse for the majority’s detachment from rigorous personal reflection, or of many people’s suspicion about or animosity towards academic theological training.

That some, if not most people in the church consider theology to be irrelevant in the church’s life is in many ways not without valid and empirical fundament. The problem of technical theological terminologies, which theologians seem to excel in inventing, is but the tip of iceberg. If one adds the complexity of the style of writing in many theological works, the philosophical categories employed in theologizing, and the notorious intentional sophisticated articulation of writers, one would understand why Christians outside the academia are taken back, for it would appear that engaging in theology today is impossible without a working knowledge of vast fields of knowledge. It is therefore not entirely the fault of majority of Christians to think that there is a sense of elitism and exclusivism in theological studies. “Theology,” in its current shape, is simply inaccessible to majority of believers. It might seem preposterous, but theology as it is today, needs to repent.

This article is an initial apologetic attempt by a young wanna-be-theologian who wants to argue that theology is primarily an act of worship. But before proceeding to this, let it be mentioned first that in the early church, theology resulted out of worship. The relationship between the doctrine of the Trinity and the early church’s worship is an excellent illustration. The first attempts to articulate the doctrine of the Trinity probably started in the second century, but the church’s worship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit goes way back to the early first century. The baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 and the Eucharistic-benediction formula in 2 Corinthians 13:14 clearly indicate that an implicit awareness of the Trinity was already present in the early church’s worship. The inter-relationship between the prophesied coming of the Adonai in “the day of the Lord” (Joel 2:28-32), and the church’s prayer Maranatha (“Come, Lord Jesus”) and Epiclesis (or Invocation of the Holy Spirit in prayer) all signify that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all equal Subjects of worship. It is out of this implicit awareness of the Triune God in worship that necessitated the church to articulate their belief in the Three-in-One. This is what James B. Torrance refers to as the doxological approach to theology: theologizing arising out of the church’s worship.

Now, to my primary question: How is theology also an act of worship? I understand theology to be “the rigorous wrestling with the Self-revealed Truth in God.” In theology, the theologian in engaged in a rigorous wrestling with the Self-revealed Truth in God. Notice how I capitalized Truth, for theology is not primarily about wrestling with propositional statements; rather, theology is a face-to-face encounter with a Self-revealing God who continuously asserts his Lordship over the theologian. In theologizing, the theologian is not communicating with angels or interpreters, but is communicating with an eloquent God who has spoken for himself in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In Jesus, the Revealer is the Revealed. The Communicator is the Communicated. The Giver is the Gift. The Truth of God is an embodied and personalized Truth: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life,” Jesus said (John 14:6). As such, to engage in theology is a frightening Moses-like encounter, in which God requires us to take off our sandals for we are threading holy grounds. Theology is a frightening Isaiah-like encounter with God, or is a Thomas-like encounter with God in which the only appropriate response is a worshipful utterance: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

What is happening in genuine theologizing? Because the theologian is face-to-face with the Self-authenticating Truth of God, theologizing involves a continuous process of rigorous and critical introspection, in which the theologian’s presuppositions and understanding are brought to light and questioned by the truth of the Gospel, so that by virtue of the questioning and pressing truth of the Gospel, the theologian continuously submits his mind and heart to the givenness of God’s objective truth. As such, theologizing is primarily a reception-in-submission to God’s Self-revelation. Any theologizing that attempts to lord over God (instead of being lorded over by Him) by categorizing God through some cultural, philosophical framework is not genuine theologizing, but is an idolatrous self-deification. The end of theology is for the theologian to perfectly submit his mind and rationality to God, thus making God the Lord of his life. This is how theology is also worship. Theology is worship when we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2).

So why should theologizing be done by all Christians? Because all Christians should come to the presence of the Truth themselves, whereby in that encounter with the Truth of God our habits of thinking, our prejudices, our questions, our misunderstandings, and our alienated minds could be brought to introspection by the Truth. Then as we repent and submit our lives, hearts and minds to God’s rebuke, correction and edification, we are also engaged in humble and whole self-prostration before the Lord our God, praying “I surrender all! I surrender all!” This is worship! Theologia is eusebeia!