Review Essay, Keeping the Balance
If there is a danger of corrupt motives, there is also a challenge to be faced when our motives are pure and our loyalties undivided. No one is free from presuppositions, argues Jervis, but if you choose to side in with the Scriptures on a particular question where more “fashionable scholars” have sided against it, “You might be made to feel stupid in front of your slightly sarcastic tutor” or “your tutorial partner’s patronizing smirk”. This is simply persecution, and we have been told to expect it. It is a question of loyalty, and we should take the “flak” and stick with the Bible. Jervis claims, “I never had to make myself believe something that flew in the face of all the evidence”. This isn’t about “blind faith”.
Practical Solutions: Six top tips on how to stay spiritually healthy The principle problems having been considered, Jervis now offers us a list of six “top tips” to bear in mind and put into practice as we engage in theological studies at university. We can divide her advice into the following categories:
A. The Introspective We need to maintain the right feelings and attitudes in ourselves.
— (1) — Don’t take yourself too seriously Jervis warns that “There are bound to be moments when you are thrown by your studies”—and if you aren’t sensible, you may start imagining that “the entire Christian faith is collapsing around you. It isn’t!” She assures the reader that, if they are patient, “the many things that baffle you now will soon fall into place.” Jervis unashamedly confesses that “To some extent I kept my academic studies and my Christian life at arm’s length from each other”. Although this may appear to contradict a point that is emphasised elsewhere in Keeping Your Balance, Jervis’ point is that you simply don’t know enough yet to try and deal with everything—be prepared to shelve some things and not worry about them.
— (2) — Be humble Jervis admits that “it is so easy to be proud and think that you are on some higher level than other ‘simple’ Christians who just read their Bibles”. In truth, you really don’t know all that much, and many of your ideas will be in a state of flux anyway as you progress through your course. Whatever you may achieve academically, you need to remind yourself that “if you are not living it out, and if you cannot explain the Christian faith to the other guys in your rugby team or to those girls on your corridor, then, as far as God is concerned, you are not a good theologian”.
Category: In Depth, Spring 2006
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