Let me tell you about one of the delights of morning tea time. Occasionally, Dan and I take a brisk walk down Campbell St to a place called *Campos*. This place makes coffee that belongs in a category of its own - it makes a man want and sing and dance, laugh and cry all at the same time.
You might think that I’m overreacting but just wait until you try it, then you’ll know… alright, I might be overreacting a little bit, but I just had another Campos experience where darkness, gloominess and drudgery, were exchanged for glorious light. Almost sounds religious, doesn’t it? You might be thinking that I need to tone things down a little bit, well maybe YOU just need to go and get a coffee from Campos!
OK, I’ll finish there, enough said.
So here’s my website… little theologians. I always thought that having a website was a bit showy. Hear, O World, and behold ME! But it seems to me that there are enough of these things around to safely assume some kind of anonymity. It’s almost like your making a point if you don’t have one.
As I set out doing this, though, I’m determined to clarify why I’m writing a blog and what things I’m writing about. In other words before I start a relationship with my people’s precious time, I want to make my intentions clear.
1. This is a great opportunity to concisely articulate my ideas. This is a selfish reason, but it’ll help me to get my ideas out of my head so that I can see them properly. Hopefully this will prove advantageous to me and everyone else that I’ve been trying to communicate with all my life.
2. This is an opportunity to let friends and family know about what’s been happening. Having recently moved cities, I’ve realised that I need to make more of an effort to stay in touch. I love the idea of writing letters, but I’m hopeless. This is a quick way of communicating to lots of people.
3. I’ve recently been reading through Karl Barth’s wonderful book, Evangelical Theology. It was Barth who coined the phrase that I’ve used to name my site. All of us are theologians in one way or another; it depends upon what you mean by ‘theos’ (god). On the other hand, a basic theology drawn from the bible about God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ shows that while theologians are concerned with God, God is concerned with theologians; with even the most intimate realms of the theologian’s humanity.
My concern on this website supercedes any kind of interest or admiration of God, but I am concerned with God in my entirety. I cannot escape his sustaining works, and I am thrilled at the warmth of his friendship and the sheer love that he has for me.
While people might gain a mastery over a topic like medicine or engineering, the object of study in theology cannot be mastered, but masters us instead. There are only little theologians - and I’m a tiny half-pint theologian. But as Barth says, “Having this God for its object, it can nothing else but the most thankful and happy science.”
My third and main hope is that I might promote him and share with others the joys of knowing him.