Even in this tech-driven, future-oriented moment, signals from ancient times get through. It is no surprise to Christopher Beeley that the classics of old still hold an up-to-the-minute relevance.
They seem to be mounting a comeback.
The Walter H. Gray Associate Professor of Anglican Studies and Patristics, Beeley sees this in his own classroom. His seminar on St. Augustine this semester is packed with 30 students.
 Christopher Beeley |
“It’s the nature of a classic that it’s always above and beyond us,” he says. “Every time I read a classic work like the Confessions I’ll always get something new out of it.”
American society itself, for about three decades now, has taken up a renewed interest in things historical, he says.
“Historical novels have seen a new popularity in the last few years. Interest in Shakespeare is as great as it ever has been. And there is a huge new interest in early and medieval theology—people like Origen and Augustine—in surprising places and across denominational lines. People are realizing that these figures have something fresh to say to every age. Even if we might disagree with some things they say, there is so much more that’s good and valuable, it’s astonishing. But this isn’t about being an antiquarian. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, the classics aren’t great because they’re old. They’re great because they’re great.”
AT YDS, Beeley teaches early Christian theology and history as well as modern Anglican tradition. He is also an Episcopal priest with full-time parish experience. Bridging the gap between ancient theology, spirituality, and the modern church is a longstanding passion for him. He believes clergy today share a hunger for practical wisdom from the great Christian leaders of the past.
One reason for the recent upsurge is that people are wearying of the ideology of radical progress, the idea that everything new is superior to what has come before. That’s not how life works, Beeley suggests. From a Christian perspective, past, present, and even the future are in a deep, inescapable conversation about human meaning and destiny.
“I don’t pretend to live in the 5th century,” Beeley says. “That’s not the point. But if you want to understand the depth of the human condition or the knowledge and love of God, you can’t look only to what’s new. If you think about it, the more essential our questions are about human life, the more they transcend time. You wouldn’t want to get an MRI in a machine that was made 200 years ago (if there were such a thing); and you shouldn’t want to learn basic Christian truth without the guidance of the great hearts and minds that have come before us.”
In his 2012 book Leading God’s People: Wisdom from the Early Church for Today (Eerdmans), Beeley focuses on the practical and pastoral theology of the early church—“‘the cure of souls,’ as we used to say”—that is found in the writings of Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Augustine, John Chrysostom, Gregory the Great, and others. Their message isn’t lost on today’s clergy, he says.
“Today’s church leaders are as hungry for good theology as our students are—and probably more so, given their restricted time for study. In the late stages of decline in the mainline churches and the transformation taking place in evangelical churches, many are rediscovering that there’s a great deal to be gained by serious engagement with the thought and practice of early church leaders and laypeople.”
Beeley’s interest in church life and theological education—and how each can enrich the other—goes back to young adulthood.
He was raised in Houston, Texas, as an Episcopalian. In college at Washington and Lee, he majored in philosophy, played rugby, ran track for the school, and performed in a popular band. He also discovered a calling to ordained ministry.
In 1994, he got his M.Div. degree from YDS, a diploma in Anglican Studies at Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, and was ordained a priest. He served full-time for two years in a parish in Austin. Then further academic study beckoned. He got a Ph.D. in theology from Notre Dame in 2002 while continuing his work in parish ministry and leadership. He joined the YDS faculty that year.
“Part of my heart is always in the parish,” he says. “Whenever students ask me if I could see myself returning to full-time parish ministry, I always say yes.”
His research and his sense of vocation speak to the interrelation of historical theology and church leadership. His book Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God: In Your Light We Shall See Light (Oxford, 2008), which won the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, deals with the intersections between dogmatic theology, Christian spirituality, and pastoral ministry. With Berkeley Divinity Dean Joseph Britton, he co-edited a special issue of the Anglican Theological Review called “Toward a Theology of Leadership” (Winter 2009), before completing his most recent book on patristic Christology: The Unity of Christ: Continuity and Conflict in Patristic Tradition (Yale, 2012).
His work also takes him to church conferences around the country, where he speaks to groups of clergy and lay leaders. He regularly teaches summer courses at YDS, which are open to anyone. These encounters give him first-hand briefings on the current-day interests and preoccupations of parish ministers.
A recurring theme that he finds is the challenge of juggling ministry and family life amid a demanding parish schedule. Another is the desire to maintain personal disciplines of reading and prayer despite one’s nonstop daily administrative duties. Above all, people want to renew their knowledge of solid pastoral theology.
“We talk about how to return to their ‘first love’ of scripture study, counseling, preaching, and presiding at worship,” Beeley says. “It can be difficult in full-time ministry to stay in touch with those things they first loved. But they often say how encouraging it is to be reminded that we’re not the first generation to feel pulled in a hundred directions at once.”
Echoing the early theologians, Beeley makes the point that church leadership depends on a balance between activity and contemplative prayer and study. At the heart of it all is a theologically driven ministry rooted in the study of scripture. It undergirds all other Christian practices, including liturgy, ethics, and pastoral care.
Beeley knows this isn’t obvious to everyone. The modern pressure to specialize has often turned theology into a technical or esoteric discipline, and the culture of tweets may be intensifying a resistance to sustained study and thought.
“The irony is that theology is the most practical thing we’ve got. It’s our body of knowledge and the meaning of all we do. Trying to do Christian ministry without being theologically rooted is like practicing medicine without being interested in medicine.”
Meanwhile, the classics of Christian tradition are there at hand to return the reader to foundational questions and answers, and Beeley in his books quotes generously from them. Thus Augustine (354-430 CE) on the tasks of pastoral leadership:
“The turbulent need to be corrected, the faint-hearted cheered up, the weak supported. The opponents of the gospel must be refuted, its insidious enemies guarded against. The impertinent should be instructed, the indolent stirred up, the argumentative checked. The proud should be put in their place, the desperate set on their feet, those engaged in quarrels reconciled. The needy have to be helped, the oppressed liberated, the good given your backing, the bad tolerated. And all must be loved.”
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