Between the Ear and the Mouth

If proclamation and systematic theology are to be distinguished, then how are they to be related? They are necessarily correlated: one is impossible without the other. Without systematic reflection there will be no conscious proclamation. … Systematic reflection is necessary to make the move to proclamation conscious and explicit. … It ought to be the kind of reflection that fosters and drives back to the proclamation. Indeed, to make distinctions as I have done here is to begin such systematic reflection. Without such reflection one would probably not come to a clear understanding of what proclamation is and so would not do it. One might do a lot of things–exegete, lecture, explain persuade, teach, orate effectively or poorly, edify–all of which may be fine in their place, but one will not proclaim.

I take systematic theology, therefore, to be the kind of reflection that takes place between yesterday’s and today’s proclamation. One who hears the proclamation reflects on it so as to say it again in a different time and context. It is a reflection that takes place between the ear and the mouth. If nothing happens there, one is not needed and would best just get out of the way. The hearers would be better advised to read the Bible or yesterday’s sermons. But then there would likely be not proclamation for today. Systematic theology is indispensable for such proclamation.

… without the proclamation and an understanding of its place, systematic theology will either not be done at all or is likely to go wrong. Everyone knows and generally agrees that systematic theology exercises a critical function over against the proclamation of the church. But if there is a genuine correlation the proclamation needs to reflect back on and raise critical questions about systematic theology. If todays proclamation does not turn out right, or is not really done at all, something went wrong with the reflection. All too often what happens is that the systematic theology short-circuits the process and usurps the place of the proclamation. The secondary discourse about love displaces the “I love you.” One ends then by delivering some species of lecture about God and things rather than speaking the Word from God. When this occurs it matters little whether the lecture in question is conservative, liberal, evangelical, or fundamentalist. That only means the lecture is to one degree or another theologically correct. But that is of no great moment if it does not issue in proclamation.

… proclamation is not just practical or pastoral application of arguments already completed and wrapped in neat packages in the systematic, but that the move to proclamation is itself the necessary and indispensable final move in the argument. If and when systematic theology looks on itself as the conclusion of the argument … it has overstepped its bounds and falsified itself. That is, the systematic reflection should not only leave room for the proclamation but must make the move inescapable. The argument must leave one in a position where proclamation is the only move left. If systematic theology does not leave such room and make such a move inescapable, it falsifies itself by denying its purpose. It then usurps the place of proclamation and retreats behind the ivied walls of academia, never to be heard from again except, perhaps, at professional societies where one has long since forgotten its purpose.