Theological writing is usually done in essays or books, but I hope to show that if we concentrate on sentences, we may well learn something we might otherwise miss.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I should like to think how we write as theologians would reflect our confidence in the One who makes that writing possible. That is one of the reasons, moreover, that the scriptures remain paradigmatic for how we are to write.
As an undergraduate, I took a theology course titled Religion as Writing. If writing can be considered a form of faith, then inevitably doubt has to accompany it.
What I do say is that I can write verse, and that the writing of verse in strict form is the best possible training for writing good prose.
I write all my sermons.
Writing reminds you of how much there is in your life that stands outside your explanations. In that way, it's almost a journey into faith and doubt at once.
The first two books that I did by myself were long stories in verse. I knew I could do that because I'd written a lot in verse. But, verse stories are hard to sell, so my editor encouraged me to try writing in prose.
I don't claim to be knowledgeable about theology. Most of my knowledge comes out of my experience and the lessons in the Bible. Every Sunday I'm home I teach 45 minutes and we boiled them down to one page for the new book, 'Through the Year with Jimmy Carter.'
The work with which we embark on this first volume of a series of theological studies is a work with which the philosophical person does not begin, but rather concludes.
All writing is that structure of revelation. There's something you want to find out. If you know everything up front in the beginning, you really don't need to read further if there's nothing else to find out.
A theology should be like poetry, which takes us to the end of what words and thoughts can do.