"After a night of heavy snow, we awoke to a dazzling white landscape and a snow blanket silence — except for one sound. The pathetic bleating of new born lambs penetrated even the double glazing, and there below the bedroom window we saw a ewe and two new born lambs picking their bewildered way across the front lawn. Quickly we dressed and went downstairs in order to help them back into the neighbouring field.
They had disappeared, leaving only their fresh steps in the pristine snow.
Then that sound again. The ewe and one lamb had made it out onto the road, but distant high-pitched bleating told us the other lamb was in distress. Following the sound, we found it trapped in the deep well beneath the cattle grid at the entrance to our drive. The lamb vainly struggled to scramble up the steep walls, whilst I strained to reach it through the grid. At length my wife exclaimed: "Call yourself a Bishop! Haven't you got the very thing".
Of course she was right. I raced into the house and grabbed my Crook, so far used only for ceremonial occasions. Lowering it through the grid, I hooked it around the little body of the lamb, and gently brought it to safety. For a moment it just stood there dazed and frightened — then scampered off down the road to join the others. Somehow, in that moment, a Good Shepherd who rescues those in danger and sends them on their way rejoicing made sense to a city boy called to be Bishop in this deeply rural place."
(Bishop of Ludlow in "The Marches Chronicles", 2000)
"I ran across a speech given by Judge Learned Hand on 21 May 1944, that is, two weeks before D-Day. Learned Hand was an important but not well known judge in New York City. He was invited to speak at the great annual festival in Central Park for the swearing in of 150,000 naturalised citizens. It was a great day of exuberant public celebration. In his stunning address, later likened to the Gettysburg Address in its eloquent, simple power, Hand told the new citizens:
"The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right;
the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand
the merits of other men and women;
the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests
alongside its own without bias;
the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded.
The spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him
who, nearly two thousand years ago,
taught man that lesson it has never learned,
but has never quite forgotten,
that there may be a kingdom
where the least shall be heard and considered
side by side with the greatest."
(Walter Brueggemann in "The Covenanted Self")
If we were to start to unpack these examples what would we come up with as a process for thinking theologically? What is common to the two extracts quoted?
Before you go on — what do you think is common?
Well, we think these pointers are helpful:
So then, what skills and methods are needed to think theologically? The next exercises will help you think this through. Three exercises for you to try out to develop an understanding of 'thinking theologically' in light of the analysis of the stories of the bishop and the judge.