We are all theologians. I learnt this when I was 18 off a bloke called Bob Plumb.
But… some of us are better read and more abreast of the wider issues than others. I am a ‘theologian’ in the same vein as I am a missionary. The term ‘backyard missionary describes not just a person doing mission in their own locality but in Oz the term ‘backyard’ refers to ‘hack’ or the ‘experimenter’ who makes it up on the run – but often seems to have a real nack for it – think ‘backyard mechanics’ who can fix anything with a bit of fence wire and spit.
Scot McKnight is not a backyard theologian. He is a professor and writer amongst other things and yesterday he began a series of posts on the emerging scene giving attention particularly to Brian McClaren’s stuff. Here are two quotes from his first post:
At times I am embarassingly ignorant of things theological, church history etc so I need to do a bit of research to understand all that Scot says. (The beauty of a blog is that I only write about what I do actually know a little of – so at times I will look smarter than I really am.)
I have been reading Scott’s stuff for a while now and he has some great insights. (His series on conversion was excellent also.) Its not hard reading so all you backyard theologians like me – you can head on over and probably understand most of what he says! winnie the pooh a very merry pooh year free download