There is an impulse in our culture to flatten disparate disciplines and frameworks into a single plane. This flattening raises the difficulty level of having honest and meaningful conversations. It happens across almost every discipline and is fed by the easy access to information. Access to information is both a blessing and a curse because information in isolation is nothing more than words. To understand the context and purpose of information requires more than a passing familiarity with the particular discipline involved.
This is true of several disciplines, but I want to take a look at the ones that often trip Christians up. These disciplines are Biblical Studies, Theological Studies, Bible Study, devotional reading, and Apologetics. Those are all very different disciplines with very different skills and purposes, yet they often get collapsed into a singular approach to Christian living. Before we deal with what happens when we collapse, it may help to define each of the terms.
Biblical Studies
This is the academic study of scripture as a collection of texts. This discipline uses language, culture, archaeology, the themes of scripture, and other tools to understand the original text. Biblical studies does not deal with the existence of God - in fact, the discipline can be engaged in without any faith and be done well. The academic approach is also typically a textual critical approach that seeks to understand the original meaning of the text in that cultural context. This discipline is not concerned with later interpretations as necessary for its understanding.
Theological Studies
This is a study of God, religious belief, doctrines, history, traditions, and philosophy. Theological studies may use one or more interpretive frameworks such as Lutheranism, Calvinism, Wesleyanism, and others. Theological studies asks questions and tries to understand God and understand how God knows us. Theology may engage biblical studies, but mostly as a way to understand the theological questions and answers people have been engaging throughout history. This discipline is more concerned with explaining who God is rather than whether God exists. Theology will lean more toward belief in God, but can also handle the skeptical probe. Good theological study understands the various approaches to itself and embraces the diversity of theological thought.
Bible Study
This is a practical activity of reading, interpreting, and applying Biblical texts. This may be done in groups or alone. It may be personal, academic, or formal. These studies may focus on a book, chapter, passage, topic, person, or other ideas. It may engage biblical and theological studies, but as information to help interpret and learn. In group settings a teacher may hold knowledge of the other disciplines, but distill those into understandable ideas appropriate to the group.
Devotional Reading
This is an informal approach to personal formation and how the text may shape our lives. Devotional reading is primarily concerned with what this means to me in this moment. Not that to creates novel approaches, but it is unconcerned with the other disciplines in that it typically assumes the existence of God. It is also the most relative of all these approaches because it is intensely personal.
Apologetics
Apologetics deals with reasoned explanations and defenses of religious faith. Christian apologetics, for example, examines questions and objections about Christianity. Questions such as whether belief in God is rational, why suffering exists, or the historical basis for Christian claims. This discipline as it is popularly known today is steeped in modernisms concerns for certitude and reason.
Who Cares?
What does all of this have to do with anything? For starters, devotional reading and apologetics often get conflated with the others. In addition, contemporary apologetics tends to flatten all of these into propositional statements. Social media influencers are primarily concerned with apologetics and devotional style approaches to scripture. There are those who do good work in biblical studies, theology, and philosophy. But their work is often attacked by apologists and Christians who do not understand the different purposes.
This collapsing into proposition gets conflated with truth. You often see this in students who arrive at a Christian university and encounter theological or biblical studies and have existential crises. These crises are the result of not being prepared for the world or for intense study of their own faith. This is one of the many catalysts for deconstruction - when you suddenly learn that scholars have varying opinions of the factual nature of biblical texts yet still hold the truth of those texts it can be very disorienting. My own example is sitting in an astronomy course at the small, private liberal, arts Christian university I attended and seeing a hand go up as the professor was discussing the speed of light and the age of the universe. “How do you reconcile that thought with Genesis?” The professor said, “This course is concerned with astronomy, to reconcile that with your faith please go visit the Bible Department.” That was kind of a cop out, but a good answer. Different disciplines and a moment to direct someone to engage faith in a deeper way in the proper academic setting.
What Does it Mean?
When I teach or preach in my local church I have engaged with theology (of course as a theologian), biblical studies, my own studies, and knowledge of the local church. I may not mention anything about the scholarly understanding of a text, but that informs how I approach the text. There are hours of study wrapped into forty-five minute lessons but those studies don’t need to bog down the lesson. But I also want to engage the larger ideas such that people are better informed when they do their own reading through study or devotions.
The danger of collapsing these into one is to confuse the purpose and may even cause harm. It is one reason I have been frustrated with my own denominations collapsing of doctrines and culturally defined marks of holiness behavior into equality of doctrinal import. No matter how often we claim to be a people who the same but diverse, it is hard to believe with that flattening. The absurdity is most evident when we consider that the use of Robert’s Rules of Order are equated as essential doctrine on par with the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
As I write this I have friends at Theology Beer Camp organized by Homebrewed Christianity. They approach these disciplines in different ways. They may even disagree with one another and with me, but they all engage in respect and understand the ways that each discipline informs their own beliefs and imagination. I wish the church could be more like the discussions at places like Theology Beer Camp. You don’t need beer (especially if you are Nazarene) but the approach to engagement and learning from one another applies.