Called to “look in” upon Christianity from the outside margin, we have recently considered the transformative possibilities such an “Overview Effect” holds. To see fully, we need to move outward toward the margins, away from the comfort of being safely “inside.”

In Part 3, we looked at the centuries-long development of Christian theology. Theologia began as the deeply spiritual encounter of “one who prays,” then shifted to a scholastic emphasis on reason. Some contemporary theologians have retrieved theology’s originating sense of transcendence, and we do well to uphold the critical balance between the often distant poles of interior spirituality and its theoretical inquiry, study and discourse. Both are necessary, the “Martha” and “Mary” (Luke 10:38-42) of action and contemplation. But how do these function in our lives, in the real world?

Questioning the function of theology is to ask, more simply, “what does it do?” Rather than a utilitarian attempt to justify my own admitted fascination with immaterial abstractions of theological discourse, this inquiry is crucial to developing our capacity to envisage their more complete whole. 

To ask what theology does is not to ask what it is for (a question often broached by a student or two in my undergraduate classrooms), but to ask the much more fundamental question of what theology actually is. While the theoretical breadth of this question can appear an abstract stumbling stone to authentic praxis, getting at theological “being” empowers our ability not only to explore the function of theology itself, but dynamically to enact the multiplicity of theology’s “doing” as well.

Theology simultaneously enacts the subjective experience, intersubjective relationship, objective evidence and interobjective specialization comprising its vast whole. Often obscured by our hegemonizing preference for one of these domains, theology manifests an equilibrious balance of its fourfold nature.

Theology’s “Four D’s”

Unashamedly betraying my undergraduate teaching practicality, we can classify these interrelated dimensions as “Four Easy D’s”:

• Depth – Subjective Experience             
• Dialogue – Intersubjective Relationship
• Description – Objective Evidence
• Dispatch – Interobjective Specialization

The Inside: Depth & Dialogue

While mystical and spiritual “depth” penetrates the subterranean interior of heart, soul, mind, and strength, “dialogue” relationally incarnates its commonality through the concrete immediacy of its multicultural proclamation, interpretation, fellowship and compassionate service. 

While the inestimable value of these too-long-neglected interior encounters comprise theology’s energetic capacity to inspire, challenge, and transform, depth and dialogue do not stand on their own. Only a part of theology’s fullness, they are influenced and developed by their more exterior contributors.

The Outside: Description & Dispatch

Objective “description” of the historical unfoldment of biblical texts, sources, doctrines, dogmas, iconography, architecture and more gives substantial flesh and bone to an ever-developing tradition extending from antiquity into the future. However, even when these objective elements accompany theology’s interior, they remain insufficient without the fourth element, extending theology into the complex world of its pragmatic systemization.

So “dispatched” into ecclesial hierarchy and organizational patterns, interpretive effects of doctrinal constructs, ministerial administration of communication, media, art, and network navigation, theology becomes fully active and alive. Orphaning theology in this realm of “dispatch,” easily reduces it to the all too familiar, inauthentic caricature of lifeless church policies, procedures, rubrics and rules.

All of This, At Once

Reducing the whole to any hegemonized quarter—no matter how valuable—betrays theology’s fourfold unity of subjective experience, intersubjective relationship, objective evidence and interobjective specialization.

Theology’s fourfold being, like the piercing two-edged sword of Hebrews’ living and active word of God (4:12), functions as all of this, of all that is. To see into ourselves from the margins, we must begin to see all of this. 

The ancient Hebrew story of the Tower of Babel (Gen 11: 1- 9) will help us grasp this more fully, but before turning there, we have first required a few insights from Christiainity’s theological tradition to empower our expanding vision.

In Part 1 of this series, we pondered the need to see ourselves and our traditions “not from the center but rather from the periphery,” suggesting  this shift in perspectives—looking in rather than securely looking out—begins a remarkable expansion of understanding of your faith, spirituality, and world. Learning how to view from the “outside in” is key to every aspect of our growth. Let me explain.

When we turn from immersion in our ordinary experience toward an outer-space view of our whole lives, we are likely to experience what astronaut-philosopher Frank White (1987) termed the “Overview Effect” in interviews with fellow space-traveling astronauts. Those who had seen Earth from space disclosed a consistent pattern of expanding personal insight, overflowing into the complex mid-twentieth century culture that never seemed to get enough of that stunning 1972 “Blue Marble” print.

Through this photograph—no matter how widely traveled or read—humanity was actually seeing itself for the very first time. Suddenly, the vast Earthen territory we had perceived became a small marble suspended in the vacuum of an uninhabitable space. Looking in after millennia of looking out from the small patch of land we called home changed everything.

This is why Christianity needs to see itself from its periphery: we understand who we really are when we relinquish the limited view of the illusory center and head to “outer space.”

Looking in on ourselves, our relationships, and our institutions—rather than simply being embedded in them—is essential for our growth. To know who we are, we need to move beyond the perceptual illusions that so forcefully, yet often imperceptibly, limit our understanding of what is really there. This is risky, and accessing this new view requires a turbulent ride into an unknown, threatening, and ever-so-thin margin. Only by adventuring to this transforming edge can we experience the “Overview Effect.”

Shifting Our Senses

Since a religious tradition is not a planet we can see in space photos, we need help to begin considering how to “see” the whole more abstractly. We will need comparisons, metaphors, and imagination to experience the transformational “Overview Effect.”

We will find, in this task, wisdom of saints, sages, and mystics a guiding example of how a contemplative vision transforms its seer. As Bernard Lonergan (1972) noted,

any notable change of horizon is done, not on the basis of that horizon, but by envisaging a quite different and, at first sight, incomprehensible alternative” (p. 224).

Since of many of us do not consider ourselves to be privileged with mystical vision, we may need to get at this much more concretely. To do so, we can appeal to another of the human senses as our starting point: hearing. The kind of transforming, “overview” vision we need first requires a type of extended listening, an earnest attempt to learn the language of that “incomprehensible” other. Let’s start there.

Listening to the Incomprehensible

Seeking to understand our present context and calling requires an ability to hear the multiple languages the Christian tradition speaks, understands and interprets. This is a move away from the secure clarity of the center toward the disruptive cacophony of uncertainty.

Shifting one’s vision first requires a new kind of listening, translating and comprehending a measure of the multiple languages our tradition has birthed. Such theological multilingualism is a gift transcending Christianity, of course, as I have proposed elsewhere. Nonetheless, the Christian tradition, replete with centuries of development, expands its self-understanding—and its theological wisdom—by listening to its own voices.

In this way, our vision moves away from looking out from a univocal center as we turn to look into ourselves from the periphery.By hearing, we discover what we could never experience in an isolated illusion of common-sense experience. Only by learning the “unknown tongues” so variably voicing our traditions’ wisdom can we begin to see who we actually are. 

Learning an Integral Christian Multilingualism

To facilitate learning this challenging theological multilingualism, I will offer a series of longer articles in five thematic parts:

• First, we lay a foundation, grasping basics of how Christianity understands “theology” itself. This preliminary understanding is crucial to our process.
• Second, we expand the horizon of how the differentiating “Tower of Babel” of our many, often incomprehensible spiritual and theological languages offers a significant key to seeing our whole.
• Third, we sketch an orienting geography of how Christianity’s many families have developed over time. This gives us a preliminary sketch of how we might see ourselves from “space.”
• Fourth, we survey aspects of the process of how varied theological languages both divide and unify their respective speakers, seeking to understand both their venerable and unintelligible features.
• Fifth and finally, we summarily explore how five theological perspectives found across the Christian denominations help us experience a personally transformative “Overview Effect.”

Adequate grasp of the complex, two-thousand year accumulation of Christianity’s comprehensive understanding of itself requires us to stand at multiple margins. Standing at the periphery, we can attentively gaze, listen, and speak in a surprisingly multilingual voice.

Learning an Integral Christian Multilingualism is our metaphorical spacecraft to the farthest reaches of our perimeter, a place we can begin to see the whole/parts of who we really are. 

References

Lonergan, B. J. F. (1972). Method in theology. Minneapolis: Seabury.

Spardaro, A. (2014). Wake up the world: Conversation with Pope Francis about the religious life. La Civilta Cattolica(I), 3-17.

White, F. (1998). The overview effect: Space exploration and human evolution (2nd ed.). Reston, VA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

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