Tim Nichols wrote a fantastic article today about Theopoetics.
What are Theopoetics? Well, it is where I hope “theology” goes.
We must get away from studying God and the Bible as if they were science projects. They are not. But that is what theology does. Instead, Theopoetics invite us to relate to Scripture and God in ways that involve all the senses, using the full range of our creative abilities, rather than just spoken or written words.
Here is some of what Tim Nichols wrote:
Theopoetics is the appreciation of — no, the embodied luxuriating in — God’s words and works as art. The same God wrote the Bible as spoke the world, so theopoetics extends from the exegesis of Paul’s use of kosmos to the dancing of taste buds at breakfast this morning.
Away with the temptation to write scholarly papers! Let no man say when he is tempted to write a scholarly paper, “I am tempted by God,” for God is not tempted to write scholarly papers, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. If God ever inspired a scholarly paper, He had the mercy not to inflict it on His people in Scripture; let us follow His good example. Let the scholarly paper’s laboriously footnoted pages be few and let another medium take its office. Let there be stories, songs, poems, vignettes, parables, sculptures, tapestries. Let there be dances!Let us learn the lessons of the Tabernacle by sculpting one, even a miniature one, and the more detail and prayer goes into it, the better. Let the plagues be painted on murals, complete with the crushed heads of the Egyptian gods. Let dances be choreographed in honor of the Red Sea crossing. Let beer be brewed in honor of Jael slaying Sisera. Let bread be baked in honor of the feeding of the five thousand — and let it be given to the poor and homeless in the name of Jesus. Let rattlesnakes be barbecued in honor of Moses’ bronze serpent (we can eat off St. Peter’s sheet; why not?) Let vibrant old liturgies be revived and adapted in honor of the resurrection of the Son of God. Let our grasp of the nature and character of God be embodied to the hilt — something we can eat, drink, watch, touch, feel, smell.
Yes and Yes! This is what God gave to the Israelites at Mount Sinai – theology they could eat, drink, watch, touch, feel, and smell. This is the kind of “theology” we need today. To find out more, head on over to the post on Theopoetics by Tim Nichols.
