The above was a quote taken from Cameron Jorgenson, over at Summa Aesthetica. Cameron, in his piece, On Chafer and having something to say, responds to my piece Theological Education: Is it important? And Barth vs. Chafer.
Cameron’s piece has really got me thinking about speaking too quickly. It reminds me of the quote by Silvan Engel, It is better to be silent, and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. I’m afraid I’ve probably removed a lot a doubt from people’s minds at times. When you have a profession that is based upon speaking, there is some danger in that, because you don’t always have the most time to think about things, or become experts in things. I speak for a living. That is not all I do, and I do have preparation time, but between preaching every week, doing bible studies, counseling, etc., there is a lot of speaking going on, and sometimes not a lot of listening. I will have to become better at this as I’m going to enter a master’s program in marital and family therapy in the Fall.
Cameron is right, sometimes there are a lot of people entering into the conversation, when they have no understanding of the topic, or have not spent the proper time researching it. He uses the Emergent Church conversation as one example of something he would like to talk more about, but feels inadequate to do so at this point. Wow! If Cameron is inadequate, than I definitely am.
Maybe the Emergent Church has been trying to keep it a conversation, so that there would be a lot more dialogue, a lot more listening, instead of constant talking and criticism.
I can probably speak average on a lot of topics, and really well on a few. Maybe it is time that I do some more listening.
