Doug recap...
So-some good times hanging out with Doug yesterday-
Throughout the day I grew both to appreciate more and more Doug's graciousness and his giant, nearly indefatigable brain, as well as fill in some more of my knowledge of where Doug is coming from theologically, and my discomfort with some pretty fundamental pieces of how he tells the Story.
I also realized that Doug has something in common with NT Wright.
In the same way that Wright writes on three distinct levels, Doug speaks on three levels. The breakdown with Wright looks like this: one level as "Tom" Wright at a popular, very accessible level (think Paul For Everyone), another as NT at a more scholarly, yet not encyclopedic or overly scholarly level (think Surprised by Hope), and then as the full-blown New Testament NinjaScholar he is with huge 800 page shelf-busters like The Resurrection of the Son of God.
Doug does much the same thing, and in certain ways I'm glad, and in other ways, it can be frustrating.
For our group last night which was mostly Evergreeners (not as many people as I had hoped, dang t...), Doug kept it at that popular level, where he kind of points to deeper things he's thinking, but doesn't really "go there." It seems like his intention is to encourage the people he's with, wherever they are at, and to be kind by not completely messing with people's heads/theologies but rather just giving them (mostly) gentle pushes in a direction he'd like to see them go. In this way, he can encourage people in living out their walk with Jesus, even if he's got some pretty fundamental disagreements with them about where that starts and what that means.
The first third or maybe half of his new book A Christianity Worth Believing is written in this way, and actually served as a good encouragement for those there last night when Doug read Chpts 1-2 and we kicked it around. It fit well into the ethos of evergreen...
The second way that Doug communicates is what we got at our Round Table at the seminary yesterday- more frank in terms of theological concepts, but also a bit more abstract. He points at where he's going, and leaves you to fill in the rest. You start wondering- "Is he saying what I think he's saying?" Most likely Doug is going for is the "ears to hear" thing... This is how most of the second half of the new book is written. It's the clearest Doug has ever written (at least in book form) about where he's at with some real hot-button theological issues, but- a lot of people are going to read it and frankly miss some of the more explosive elements.
This kind of talk can be super frustrating for those who want things laid out plainly and in concrete terms. Doug seems hesitant to do this probably for a number of reasons- I think he realized awhile ago that when you start rolling back the theological clock questioning things like the Augustinian foundations of 99% of modern Christian theology (the Fall, the sinfulness of man, the spiritual-yet-real difference between those "in" and those "out", etc) you have the potential to cause a lot of 1. heated arguments
2. Confused and potentially hurt people
And since that's not what Doug's about, he seems to prefer to speak in such a way that people who want to understand it, and are willing to put in a bit a work can get where he's coming from. Others tend to think he's just kind of long-winded, or not really answering their questions. He is answering them- just not in the way they want him to.
But lastly, if you are just sitting one-on-one, or in a smaller group with Doug, he's a lot more likely to tell you just what he thinks. He's plain spoken and forthright to a fault.
I actually appreciate all of this for a number of reasons- it's really rare to find someone who has that level of facility with conversation and even their own ideas that they can speak engagingly on all those levels.
And while I may not agree with Doug on everything (and I realized yesterday how wide that gap really is), I dig the way he talks about it- He's got zero interest in and personal stake in anyone seeing theology exactly the way he does. For too many people, theology is a zero-sum game with winners and losers and every conversation is a chance to better my stats, wrack up some points, etc...
I'm going to talk more about what I appreciate about Doug's new book (there's a lot) and where I need to get off the train (also a lot). But I hope that those evergreeners (and blog readers) who check out this book can do so carefully, take what's useful to them and leave the rest. There's a lot of good stuff, and some stuff that honestly, I think is out of step with and that does not take into account a lot of what I see in Scripture.
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