Welcome to Constructing the Theological Mosaic!
You may be wondering, or not, why the term 'mosaic' is used in the title of this class. Why not just call it 'Systematic Theology' or 'Theology Survey' or some other such exciting name? To be honest, I don't really know. However, I can take a fairly educated guess.
This class was developed by the late theologian, Stan Grenz and he was good friends with Roger Olson, who wrote The Mosaic of Christian Belief. It seems that both of these theologians longed for a broader theological method that took seriously the theological tradition as well as current thinking about God and culture. Olson, in the intro to his book, talks about the need for a "both/and theology." What he wants is a theology that can hold an orthodox understanding of God while simultaneously holding our current questions about God, the universe and everything. In addition, if we are willing to look and explore, many of the questions that we ask today have been asked before, so we also look to the tradition to help us in our questioning and theologizing. Thus, our first week's reading turns to Olson to help us understand how we might begin the theological task together.
I believe that this background is an invitation to wander and wonder about God. We should all bring our questions to the table. Just like a pictorial mosaic, each of our offerings becomes a small tile as we work together to understand the God who is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. We will also read and read in this class, attempting to understand the questions of the tradition so that we might ask better questions.
To help broaden and deepen our discussions, the class will be divided into different reading groups. My hope in diversifying our readings is to create a different sort of mosaic, diverse views of God, Trinity, creation, humanity and the person and work of Jesus Christ. You will all be given an opportunity to bring this diversity to our class discussions. The goal is to search out the "least inadequate language" through which to talk about God, as theologian Colin Gunton puts it.
So, I invite you to bring yourselves, bring your questions and bring your minds to the theological mosaic. We will read, sort, discuss and listen to a variety of voices. Come and help create the theological mosaic with me and all your classmates.
See you next Wednesday at 9:30AM (yes, that is 9:30AM).
Peace,
Chelle (a.k.a. Dr. Stearns)