WHAT IS THEOLOGY ? PART ONE

WHO AM I THEOLOGICALLY?

I, Isaiah White Tumwine, promised that I will be defining what Theology is and therefore attract a discussion from all corners of the world to help ourselves understand this discipline.

However, as I embark on the question of WHAT IS THEOLOGY, allow me to briefly tell the story about myself. I happened to belong to a certain religious movement which traces its origins from the William Millers. I was a devotee of this religion and served it in various capacities at least to the extent it allowed.

Finally, we part ways with this religion and my point of departure was about the understanding of what THEOLOGY is or ought to be, in relation to how this religion viewed it.

After a very long time, I have discovered that if you are in any religious belief system and you are serious about your belief life, you will never be comfortable with the same beliefs for long. The reality is either you will drop what you have believed for a very long time or it will metamorphose into something you cannot explain but can feel.

This is because, the more we relate to God, the more we get to understand that he transcends all our boxes of Limitations and interpretations.

Personally, I want to a theological seminary for two reasons:

First was to recover from the depression I was going through after the death of one of my mothers. The second fundamental reason was ecclesiastical which was to defend the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (SDA), a religion I believed was God’s exclusive religion and all others were satanic. I joined the venture into THEOLOGY as a discipline (i.e if I even understood it was a discipline), just to acquire tools and skills on how to defend the church of God which was none other than the SDA.

I went to Bugema University in Uganda, East Africa, which actually then, was the biggest and had the best theology as per Theology. When I got there I found two classes of teachers:

The first class told me that my problem statement of defending the only church of God aka SDA was right, and they were going to help me with better skills on how to do that. These lecturers who were academicians with Doctorates and various PhDs ushered me into the huge section (in the University Library) of the Religion’s theology which fundamentally was constituted on the assumed prophetic gift of a woman known as Ellen Gould Harmon (Mrs. James White).

These professors together with the university Administration had coined courses and included them on the theological discipline and all these courses were oriented by the pen of inspiration by this late woman. These courses were: SDA DOCTRINES, CHURCH HISTORY, ELLEN G. WHITE, STEWARDSHIP, etc.

A Theological transcript had all these courses included and you could not graduate as a theologian without these. This is not specific to the SDA religion alone but all denominations with theological seminaries tend to include their view and interpretation as part of the discipline of Theology if not Theology itself.

In fact, Samson Kasumba Mulunda as a lecturer resigned after he was given an ultimatum to tune his theological teaching and suit church beliefs and interpretation or declare himself as one who is opposed to the status quo interpretation. There was a time at the university when the community suffered classes of Liberals and Conservatives. (terms I now know we never even knew what they stood for)

The second class of lecturers I found at the university bluntly told me that what had brought me to the university to study Theology was wrong. My problem statement of defending the only church of God which was the SDA was faulty and needed to be fixed before I even embarked on the Theological journey.

These lecturers, in fact, were not people of letters and none of them had a Ph.D. or even a DOCTORATE. The most educated of this class had a Masters of THEOLOGY. Personally, am not a person of letters so if you are this kind of person who looks at documents before you listen to what people are saying or what can do, then you better not waste your time following my series, for am just a Bachelors Degree Holder in this discipline but, productively and practically, a huge tremor to Ph.D. holders and Doctors of Theology. Many run for their lives once am on the panel. In case you doubt, try me. (okay that was arrogant truth, my apologies please).

So, it was these (not with big academic letters but with huge education) that told me that Theology is the study of God and of a God who has no tribe, no color, no religion, and no country. These emphasized that I should read the Bible more than any other commentary or scholarly work. They however reminded me that after I have turned the Bible is the main meal, I should look outside the box and read many other theological books from all thinkers in history who have been thinking about these matters and get to know what every other person has discovered as opposed to limiting myself to one source of discovery.

They argued that you could not formulate a conclusion with only one source of information in your bibliography…and expect that to be a credible conclusion. It was these that I painfully subscribed to and that is how my journey of the fall-out with the SDA begun. Since then I have to confess that my theological understanding has been fed and formed by the following theological professors chronologically.

• GOD: God has taught me theology through his word in SCRIPTURE and his direct communication through himself as the HOLY SPIRIT. He has trained me theologically as he leads me to specific BOOKS and as I read he interprets a number of things. God also has revealed a number of theological themes through daily EXPERIENCES and the best of all was taking me through the SDA. I cannot thank God enough for subjecting me to the pain this cult inflicted on me. SDA helped my theology more than any other experience.
• AFRICAN PROFESSORS: The second class is my African Lecturers and here are their names: Samson M Kasumba, Reuben T. Mugerwa, Simon Bwambale, Anthony Achiga and Benard Ombori. These are the professors who influenced my theological mind. This does not entail to say that I agree with them in everything but that these men understood what it means to do theology in context.
• INTERNATIONAL TEACHERS: The third class of my professors in theology are those from the European Community and the international scene. And these I have deliberated with on the internet (Email, Skype, online classes, and blogs). These are; N.T. Wright, R.C. Sproul, D. A. Carson, Ravi Zacharias, John Piper, William L. Craig, Millard Erickson, Stanley J Grenz, Richard. L. Pratt, and Roger E. Olson.

I have been talking to many of them, and recently when I asked one of them how he would define theology he said:

“I am not going to give you a definition, am just going to share with you an experience and since you are one of the African brilliant students you will make your own conclusions”.

It is what he shared with me, that I will share with you, my readers as we attempt to understand what theology.

God bless you am ISAIAH WHITE TUMWINE (Pastor)