Desiring to Teach vs. Desiring to be a "Teacher"

Reflecting on the Snare of Pride in Theological Education

Years ago when I was in the early days of my Seminary training, I read a blog post from Carl Trueman (no longer online but titled, “Pride is the True Heresy”).

It was about checking your motives for pursuing theological education and I think about it every so often.

He’s reflecting on Paul’s words to Timothy in 1 Tim 1:5–7:

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

All of the following excerpts are from Trueman’s article.

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Their desire is not to teach but to be teachers

There is an important difference here: their focus is on their own status, not on the words they proclaim. At most, the latter are merely instrumental to getting them status and boosting their careers.

The cult of professor worship is perhaps the most dangerous and reprehensible cult in the theological world. It is no respecter of theological position, afflicting the left just as much as the right.

Nothing so destroys a Christian leader, or his followers, than the mutual flattery involved in the uncritical adulation of a fan-base for a professorial rock star.

How does this happen?

First: There is the fact that the relationship is built on a mutually beneficial dynamic of basic vanity: the professor tells the students how clever they are, despite the limitations of their educational background so far, and the students reciprocate by allowing the professor, magus-like, to introduce them to the wonderful, liberating world of real though. Everyone’s a winner, everyone’s ego gets stroked; everyone feels good about themselves and somewhat superior to those left outside the sacred circle of Gnostic knowledge.

Second: The focus of these groups becomes the professor and then the little group of acolytes, not the gospel or, indeed, proper thinking, scholarship, or anything else for that matter. If they feature at all, they are merely fuel for driving the larger cult of personality.

Often these little cabals become hyper-sensitive about even the slightest perceived criticism of themselves or their chosen leader; but, by way of contrast, they are often extremely free + colorful with the language they use to describe those with whom they disagree.

This violence of language is symptomatic of deeper issues, indicating that it is often, at root, the emotional connection to the professor which drives the subsequent theological conviction rather than the other way around.

This is a constant temptation and danger for the powerful intellect or alpha personality, one that needs to be guarded against at all costs.

Third: The long-term impact is that the views of the particular leader get transmitted to the spheres of influence in which the students themselves progress. This is where the little classroom cults become much more dangerous.

The throwaway comment that a professor makes in a lecture or a pastor makes in some context can come back to haunt the church in unfortunate and unintended ways as admiring students latch on to the words of the coolest profs in town.

And, in an attempt to get a little piece of the magic for themselves, repeat them, exaggerate them, and even misquote them out of context.

This is bad enough when done unintentionally. How much more dangerous is it when swaggering professors go out of their way to cultivate acolytes who go out and do this sort of thing virtually for a living?

If you worship a professor or teacher or pastor, you will come to be like them, warts and all, and probably in an exaggerated way.  That is why so many professorial disciples sound like cheap, lightweight versions of the original.

They are basically idolaters and what you see in their lives and language is the inevitable result of their idolatry.

It is often said that you cannot enter into a pulpit and make yourself look like a great preacher and Christ look like a great savior at one and the same time.

So it is in the classroom, on campus, at conferences: the professor, the theologian, cannot point to the power of the cross and simultaneously encourage a cult of personality. These things simply cannot stand together.

In sum: It is surely vital that the professor not only avoid creating such cults but also actively opposes them as they start to arise around him.  To do less than this is, I fear, to empty the cross of its power and to lead others into idol worship.

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Especially in light of the dynamics of social media & the marketing machinery of evangelical scholarship, these comments are timely and incisive.

I think part of the solution is to envision scholarship and your area of study as a field to be cultivated rather than a stage to be built and occupied.