Editor's note: Ian A. McFarland, who holds the Robert W. Woodruff Professorship of Theology at Emory University's Candler School of Theology and served as Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, is deeply passionate about theology. With a focus on modern Christian thought, Professor McFarland shared his insights on Christian theology, its growing ecumenical trends and potential challenges, as well as the interplay between Oriental and Western thinking, in an exclusive interview with China Christian Daily during his stay in Beijing in early August. Professor McFarland is the sole author of six books such as The Word Made Flesh: A Theology of the Incarnation and The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology (co-editor), an editor of the Scottish Journal of Theology, and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
China Christian Daily: Could you please introduce yourself, your work, and your first impression of Beijing?
Ian McFarland: I teach Christian theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, with a particular focus on Christian doctrine, especially modern Christian thought. My interest lies in how Christians have shaped their teachings to demonstrate, both to those outside the church and within, that the various doctrines they uphold are coherent and not contradictory, particularly in light of the challenges to Christian faith that have occurred in the West during the modern period.
It’s my first time in China. My first impression of Beijing is that the weather is very much like my city of Atlanta - hot and humid! However, Beijing is a much larger city with a much longer history. As I battle jet lag, I’ve enjoyed walking around the city and exploring different areas. It’s been an honor and a wonderful experience to be here.
China Christian Daily: Could you share with us an overview of how theology is studied in the United States?
Ian McFarland: In broad terms, the theology of the United States happens in two kinds of institutions: freestanding seminaries affiliated with particular church traditions, and theological schools connected to research universities. Some seminaries, including Lutheran, Catholic, or Orthodox institutions, are self-contained, while others, like the one I teach at, offer theological training within a broader academic context, where students may also study a variety of other subjects.
At these institutions, some students pursue ministry, while others focus on academic theology.
The perspectives offered by different Christian traditions naturally shape how theology is taught. A Baptist seminary will emphasize different aspects of theology than a Catholic or Lutheran seminary. If you look at a book of theology written in 1960, I would say it would be very easy to tell what Christian tradition the writer came from, based on the books listed in the bibliography, but today it is much more difficult. The range of sources theologians today draw on have much more in common. There is a greater ecumenism in theology done today than there would have been in theology done in the middle of the last century.
At Emory, where I teach, our divinity school is affiliated with the Methodist Church, although I am a Lutheran. The majority of the faculty are Methodists, but our approach to studying theology, the Bible, and Christian education has a lot in common.
China Christian Daily: Do you think that the move towards greater ecumenism is positive?
Ian McFarland: I think so. In the U.S., the major divisions that tend to cause difficulties are no longer the traditional denominational differences between Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, or Baptists, but distinctions within each of those traditions, between liberal and conservative wings. Despite this, there is a growing trend toward engaging with theological perspectives outside of one’s own in order to reach a broader audience.
China Christian Daily: What is unique about systematic theology?
Ian McFarland: Systematic theology, also referred to as dogmatic or constructive theology, involves reflecting on Christian teachings—what the church teaches, what those teachings mean, and why they are important. In my classes, I encourage students to explore three key questions: What does a church teach? What does it mean? And why does the church think it important to say it? “Systematic” refers to an exploration of the way in which different teachings relate to each other. For example, how does what Christians say about God affect what they say about the world? How does what they say about the world reflect what they say about what Christians hope for in terms of God's purposes? Part of what I'm interested in doing with students and in my own work is to explore how particular Christian commitments and beliefs engage Christian proclamation and create pressures to talk in some ways, as opposed to other ways.
A simple example would be why Christians insist on Jesus being divine. One way to understand why Christians say this is to remember that Christians believe that Jesus saves. And in order for Jesus to be the savior, Christians have reasoned, Jesus has to be God because only God can save (that is, only God is able to guarantee human life against every threat). Therefore, Christians have wanted to say that Jesus has to be no less than God – that Jesus' is divine, not simply human. So systematic theology is the way in which Christians reflect on their preaching and teaching in a way that ensures that it is clear and coherent.
China Christian Daily: As a Lutheran, how would you distinguish Lutheran theology from other traditions?
Ian McFarland: I view Lutheranism as a particular dialect within the broader Christian language. Lutherans and other Christians share a common language, but Lutherans emphasize certain aspects of Christian teaching. Specifically, Luther was absolutely adamant in emphasizing our reliance on God's word as the sole object of our trust and security in the face of any doubts and fears that we may have. You may not always feel like God loves you, or that you are in a state of grace or anything like that; that's a norma part of the human condition under a state of sin. So you do not depend on your feelings, or, as Luther famously says, you are not justified by your works but by God's grace. What you depend on is not something in you but rather something out there, something God has given you, namely, God's word of promise.
For me, what Lutheran theology contributes to Christian discourse is a persistent reminder that in the face of every temptation, in every way in which Satan can make one doubt God's love, to always rely on the word proclaimed. Luther said the church was properly understood as a place of proclamation – he called it a “mouth house.” He thought the sacraments—baptism and communion—were simply another way of proclaiming the gospel as visible words. The Lutherans can help remind the church’s job is our utter dependence on the word in the face of every temptation. But there are weaknesses: Lutherans are notoriously bad on ethics. Because of Lutheran's emphasis on what God has done for humans, he was always worried that talking about human activity would begin to push things in the wrong direction – risk suggesting that we could earn God’s love by our ethical efforts. And so ethics are not as well developed in Lutheran thought as in other branches of Christianity. That means Lutherans need to learn from other Christians, Catholics, and Mennonites who are much more focused on right action and sanctification to balance their emphasis on the word.
China Christian Daily: How can theology effectively respond to the challenges and issues facing today's world?
Ian McFarland: Broadly, theology is the way to help the church maintain the clarity and consistency of its witness: is it speaking in a way that is heard by people as good news versus instances where you may think you're speaking the good news while people are hearing it in a different way. Theologians have the particular responsibility of attempting to say: Here are places where the church is being faithful, and here are places where the way the church is speaking or acting does not communicate the good news. I think it is the church's job, the whole people of God, to speak to the world. Theology's job is to speak to the church to help it speak to the world better.
China Christian Daily: Regarding the workshop organized by the Yale Center Beijing in early August, could you please elaborate on the subjects you teach and your expectations for the program? Additionally, could you share how the students are performing?
Ian McFarland: I was invited to teach a compressed course on Christian thought, covering all the major topics of Christian doctrine over the span of a week. My aim is twofold: First, to equip students with a working theological vocabulary, as some are studying Christian thought directly while others are engaged in related disciplines. I would use the image of drawing a map to describe what I am trying to accomplish: just as in the world when you find yourself in a particular spot, and you can use a map position yourself with respect to other spots, so by understanding the shape of Christian teaching on particular issues, you can position yourself with respect to different theological positions. Second, I want to show how all Christian doctrines are ultimately shaped by the issue of salvation or soteriological concerns. Christian claims about the being of God and the being of the world are also claims about ontology and metaphysics, but it seems to me that such claims are rooted in our being based on, or derived from, the fundamental claim God saves. In my view, Christians should get nervous about any proposal of doctrine that creates problems for absolute faith in the status of Jesus as Savior. If there's a doctrine that says that Jesus isn't God, that God is not omnipotent, or the situation of human beings is objectively hopeless, they would be problems for Christians because they would interfere with the ability to place complete trust in Jesus.
Based on the questions the eighteen students were asking me after my lectures the first morning, I would say they are performing very well. These are very talented students, and they're listening to me in a second language, so it's a very demanding program for them.
China Christian Daily: As more Chinese people study about Christian theology, what is the contribution of Chinese theology to the global academia?
Ian McFarland: A key point about Christian theology is the right Christian proclamation of Jesus, particularly for people in need, or in situations of stress or deprivation. Do they hear this as good news? Historically, Western theology was shaped almost exclusively by well-off European men, who often had valuable insights, but their perspectives were limited by their narrow range of experiences. Women were pretty much excluded, as were people from outside of Europe. I suspect for Christians who are not in a Western context, there is always tension between recognizing something that has come in with the gospel that is new and different, but it's shaped by European ways of thinking, which have their strong points and their weak points. Europeans themselves are not good at seeing the weak points, so other people need to point them out.
One of the great eruptions in theology in the last 70 years has been not simply the presence of Christians in China, Africa, or the South, but increasingly, the Christians from those areas are beginning to speak to the wider Church in ways that are not simply repetitions of traditional Western theology. I think the Church is always enriched when it gets more and more people hearing and responding to its message. If people respond negatively, it can help the church make its message better. My confidence is that Chinese Christians draw on their own experience of Christianity, which goes back many hundred years, but also a broader cultural context that goes back thousands of years.
China Christian Daily: What does Oriental thinking contribute to theology, the latter which is more Western thinking?
Ian McFarland: Non-Western perspectives will provide clues about why it is that sometimes what Western theologians are saying makes no sense in other cultures. Simply saying the name of Jesus is no guarantee for faithfulness; there has to be some expectation that some people are hearing and are not. The perspective of Chinese (and other) Christians from outside Europe and North America calls on Western Christians to be more careful about what they say. Positively, Western theology is deeply influenced by Greek philosophy. I have a conviction that Chinese Christianity will be influenced by and shape the church based on Chinese philosophy.
China Christian Daily: How can seminaries maintain a balance between different theological disciplines and avoid fragmentation in education?
Ian McFarland: My worries are about differences between Bible study and theology, or preaching and theology, or Christian education and the Bible, which we have within seminaries, partly because of academic concerns. I worry about these divisions because, if you look at the great theologians of history, Gregory of Nyssa, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and even in the 20th century, Karl Barth, all wrote biblical commentaries and didn't simply write theological treatises. Martin Luther was mainly a professor of the Old Testament, he wouldn't think of himself as a “theologian” in the modern sense. He was a Bible scholar. Most of his published work is Bible commentary. So in the English-speaking context, I am more worried about the fact that the Bible courses, theology courses, history of Christianity courses, and preaching courses are all experienced by students as separate bits that are not connected.
Students in American seminaries are usually required to take certain courses, and often the Bible comes first and theology second. The Bible provides the data and theology reflects on it. But it should be the other way round, because the point of theology is to help you read the Bible better. Because of academic pressure and university policies, parts of the Christian enterprise are separated. Theologians don’t often read the most advanced biblical scholarship because it is so technical. Likewise, biblical scholars often don’t read theology. When I was a doctoral student, I was not required to take any Bible course. There’s a fragmentation of theology.
China Christian Daily: How can Christians avoid denominationalism while appreciating the strengths of other traditions?
Ian McFarland: The disagreements between Lutherans and Reformed Protestants, for example, that were important to Europeans often made little sense to those in Japan, China, or Africa. These divisions, it became clear, did not serve the witness of the Gospel. In the 19th century, Christians in Europe and North America began to emphasize the shared experience of coming to the Gospel, rather than focusing on denominational differences.
Having taught in the United Kingdom for many years, I came to appreciate the variety of English accents and traditions across different regions in the UK. Just as these differences enrich British culture, so denominational distinctions can contribute to the richness of Christian experience and tradition. However, these distinctions must be approached with care. If they are taken too seriously, they can detract from the unity of the Church's mission. A teacher of mine once remarked that Christians often find agreement in what they reject.
Both the Reformers in the West and the Catholics agreed on certain fundamental issues. They both rejected the notion that human beings could save themselves, and that they played no role at all in their salvation. The disagreements, although significant, were rooted in the ways each side approached these issues. Catholics, in their focus on human participation in salvation, believed Protestants did not give sufficient attention to the role of human agency. Conversely, Protestants, in their emphasis on God's grace, felt that Catholics did not fully preserve the idea that human beings do not save themselves. By understanding what both sides sought to avoid, we can better appreciate and understand these differences without losing sight of the deeper commonalities that unite us.
China Christian Daily: In a postmodern society, particularly among young people, there is a widespread rejection of absolute truth and authority. Since theology is centered on absolute truth and revelation, how should it respond to this challenge?
Ian McFarland: Christians must remain humble in the way they speak about truth, recognizing that while God is always right, our expressions of God's truth are not always without error. Paul speaks of being stewards of the mysteries of God (1 Corinthians 4), which suggests that we are entrusted with a treasure in vessels. While Christians believe in something that demands complete attention and devotion, we must also acknowledge that our ability to witness to this truth is often flawed and in need of constant correction.
God possesses the absolute truth, and we bear witness to it. My view is partial, and others may see aspects of my testimony that require correction. As Paul says, "God’s power is made perfect in weakness." We must distinguish between the absolute truth of God and our human attempts to communicate that truth. Our witness will always be striving to catch up with the reality of God, who is always ahead of us.
It is essential that our commitment is to God, not to ourselves or our particular church. The role of the church is to point to that greater reality. Karl Barth famously referred to the Isenheim altarpiece, where John the Baptist points to the crucified Jesus. He said that the church, like John, is the finger pointing toward Christ. The absolute truth we seek is found in God, not in ourselves. When the church begins to point back to itself, that’s when problems arise, but we are always that finger.
China Christian Daily: Do you have any words for the Chinese church and Christians?
Ian McFarland: Being faithful in a world that regards the church with either indifference or hostility is always a challenge. I pray that the church’s witness in China will be faithful. I hope Chinese people will pray that the witness of my church in the U.S. will also be faithful because the prayers of the Church across different countries and continents supporting each other are crucial to the flourishing of the gospel continuing into the 21st century and the end.
