BIOGRAPHY
ꈾ theological influences
ꈾ academic influences
ꈾ academic interests
ꈾ personal bio
theological influences
Scott Burnett ⋅ Broken (the Via Dolorosa)
My life is a joyful cycling between entrepreneurial adventures, directing a non-profit, and academics. Two experiences define my entire theological development:
The way I came to faith:
I was a physics major, a dedicated atheist, and from an unchurched background. After a year in college, feeling despondent and searching for meaning, I dropped out to travel and explore the world. One evening early in those travels, I found myself discussing these issues with a few Christians. Unmoved by their arguments, I found myself alone in the room contemplating the possibility of God. Quietly reviewing my reasons for disbelief, a stupid metaphor struck me: “I was a fish in the ocean insisting that trees didn’t exist.” The moment my naive empiricism collapsed into humiliating uncertainty, something in me let go. Then it happened. A Presence began to fill the room, for which I have no explanation other than to say that it was more real than anything I had ever experienced. My world immediately started to transform. As I fast-forwarded through everything important to me, it all flooded with new meaning. As the Presence continued to fill the room, all thoughts faded into a simple state of awe and joy like I had never experienced before or thought possible. The moment it came directly over me and I felt its Infinite expanse, I was completely undone. I fell over, powerless, on the couch. In both joy and now fear, I silently said, “Enough.” It immediately began to leave just as it came. I was left lying on the couch, uncontrollably weeping, filled with indescribable joy. I was now a theist.
The defining of my faith:
Soon after that experience, I told one of the Christians what had just happened. He made no effort to explain anything. He simply told me to go home and read the book of John. That weekend, I read the entire New Testament, except for the book of John (if you knew me, you’d understand). After a few chapters into Revelation, I thought I’d leave that for another time. In my search for meaning, I had read the Bible before, but this time, meaning exploded off every page — the whole thing, no ‘picking-and-choosing’. That same Presence in the room, days before, now began to illuminate a life-giving narrative and the Presence of Christ, as God. I was now a Christian.
After my travels, I immediately enrolled at a nearby college to study the Bible and deepen my understanding of my faith. I soon found myself in a love-hate relationship with the church and the theologies I encountered. The Christian mystics were deeply meaningful, but something was still missing. It all seemed incomplete, failing to fully acknowledge what I was experiencing and reading in the Scriptures. In this respect, my understanding of God will forever reflect the importance of this unique sequential order in which I came to conviction in a living God and the asymmetrical priority of God’s Spirit’s interaction with human spirit for knowing Christ as God (Matt 12:32).
academic journey
Struggling with dyslexia, I found academics very frustrating, often painful. However, throughout my life, whenever serious theological questions arose, I periodically returned to formal theological studies to address those concerns. During those pursuits, various professors encouraged me to continue developing my theological and philosophical ideas at higher levels of study, which I ultimately did. Blessed by some fortunate entrepreneurial ventures, I have now, finally, “retired” into full-time academic research, writing, and experimenting with new forms of ecclesial expressions for a pluralistic, postmodern world.
academic interests
Frustrated with theology’s continuing dismissal of entire themes and sections of the narrative to accommodate forced, premature coherence, I seek deeper meaning in the Scriptures and our faith practice, especially those ‘wild goose’ passages that lack meaning within antiquated theological frameworks. Theology’s reluctance to expand its insights into the Scripture and the Christian faith as growing knowledge and heuristics develop is theologically and ecclesiastically debilitating. Are we or are we not being transformed from one degree to another? Since all our knowledge influences our understanding and experience of God, my academic pursuits are interdisciplinary, specifically focusing on how the divine spirit holistically yet dynamically interacts with the human spirit in a co-conditioning way (analogia spiritus). In this regard, I aim to develop a more nuanced understanding of perichoresis (love) and its importance in relational dynamics, theological anthropology, and metaphysics. My current interdisciplinary interests include postmodern theory, pneumatology, human developmental theory, literary critical theory, social theory, communications theory, cultural studies, the art of culture, and relativity physics/quantum mechanics (my initial undergraduate major) — all of which contribute to greater clarity in trinitarian theology (Bonhoeffer).
Scott Burnett ⋅ Chosen (The Baptism of Christ)
personal bio
I married a small-town girl, Cheryl, from Illinois, and danced her (very willingly) back to Southern California, where we raised two wonderful girls. After completing my postgraduate studies abroad (21 years after undergrad studies), we moved to Seattle, where Cheryl finished her graduate work in psychology and now works with those struggling with suicide and chemical dependency. We never left. Our greatest pastime is exploring the intersection of faith and culture, and engaging the art and literature of our culture—music, film, novels, and food. Most meaningful of all, we love gathering with others and friends, in whom we “take non-possessive delight in the particularity of the other” (James Loder’s definition of love). We both enjoy an active lifestyle with our Westie, Haggis.
Personal indulgences: Far too many books on the shelf and a cellar full of Scottish single-malt (the collateral damage of discussing theology and philosophy in underground pubs on Rose Street, Edinburgh).
We are all being transformed from one degree to another into the image of the Lord by the beholding of God’s glory reflecting between us, in us, in others, in the world, and preeminently in Jesus Christ—all by the Spirit being poured out upon the world just as the waters cover the sea.
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2 Cor 3:1, Matt 25:37–40, Hab 2:14
Babette’s Feast (1987’s Academy Award Best Foreign Film)
In their infinite depth, truth possesses us, and the crushing beauty in the world brings us to our knees.