The Answer Key

I always loved math classes in college, because after finishing a problem, you could immediately flip to the back of the textbook to see if your answer was correct. And let me tell you, there are few things in life more satisfying than working on some mind-numbing calculus problem for 10 minutes, ending up with x²(3tan(x)) at the bottom of the page, and finding that exact answer in the back of the textbook.

By my second year at Golden Gate, I found myself looking for the same kind of “answer key” for my seminary classes. It had all started with church history class, I suppose, where I learned about the origins of the hundreds of Christian denominations and sects that make up our current religious landscape. Each of them was basing its beliefs on the Bible but coming to different conclusions—even about core doctrines like salvation, baptism, and the Holy Spirit. So how could you reliably choose among them?

That’s where the answer key came in. I began craving a foolproof system for correctly interpreting the Bible, and I fully expected my hopes to be realized in Systematic Theology class (seeing as how it had “system” right there in the title). Here I would surely find a comprehensive theological framework capable of settling any nettlesome questions about a particular doctrine or practice.

That’s a tall order, of course, but Dr. S, the theology professor, seemed just the man to fill it. Though youthful, Dr. S was armed with an Ivy League education, and he immediately assigned us lengthy readings in an 1100-page textbook with stark chapter titles like Creation, The Church, and The Trinity. This sure looked like the kind of book that contained a lot of right answers, and I was eager to dig in.

Unfortunately, it soon became obvious that Dr. S was more interested in asking questions than answering them. He was big on something called “theological reflection,” which—as near as I could tell—was a fancy name for “figure it out for yourself.” And while a little personal responsibility is probably healthy, it did seem to me like Mr. Ivy League could have coughed up a few answers now and then. Was that too much to ask?

But this reflection stuff even extended to Dr. S’s tests. Oh sure, he usually started things off with a matching section where you would be required to connect Arminius with New School Theory or some such thing. But that was just to soften you up for the essay portion of the test, where Dr. S forced you to “reflect theologically” on some real-world situation. Once, he asked us to formulate a response to our hypothetical 16 year-old daughter who felt that God was calling her to preach. I knew the “right answer” from a Southern Baptist perspective, but I also knew that Dr. S was more interested in my thought process than the rightness of my answer.

And that’s just the kind of thing that never happened in calculus class.