Rev. Jill Duffield
Senior Pastor
One of my favorite professors at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary recently retired. I never had a chance to have a class with him, but I had the privilege of hearing him preach numerous times. He was also incredibly generous with me when I was the editor of the Presbyterian Outlook. I asked him to write with regularity because he was not only smart and knowledgeable, he was committed to using his intellect and training for the sake of the local church. He believed that the rubber met the road in terms of transformation and impact in particular congregations and subsequently he wanted his work to be accessible to pastors and people in the pews. David Johnson’s wit and kindness are well known on the Austin campus, and I want to introduce him to you.
His book, Trust in God: The Christian Life and the Book of Confessions is just a little over one hundred pages, but its length belies its depth. (Spoiler alert: we will use his book in officer training this year.) My copy is highlighted, underlined, and starred with copious notes in the front pages. When, while planning for Sunday morning, I get bogged down in trivialities or debates that revolve around preferences (usually my own!), I remind myself, as Johnson writes, “If God is acknowledged as God, worship is truly worship.” This truth brings me both relief and clarity on a weekly basis. David is really good at articulating Truth with conciseness.
The most recent Austin Seminary faculty journal is dedicated to David, and it is chock full of such wisdom. Wisdom like this: “The fundamental axiom of Reformed Spirituality is this: God loves you. That is sheer fact. There is no ‘maybe,’ or ‘if,’ or ‘but.” There is a ‘therefore.’ Exploring that ‘therefore’ is my life’s work. I have figured that out just in time.” He also writes, “The fact that Jesus loves you does not at all exclude that possibility that he occasionally finds you irritating.”
Much of what makes Professor Johnson so beloved is this combination of sure faith and unwavering honesty. His love of God and people is not in the least bit sentimental, nor naïve. I suspect this comes, in part, from the fact that he has cerebral palsy. Daily activities I take for granted he cannot. Some of my theoretical questions of faith are very practical ones for him. Perhaps that is why, as one of his students puts it, “I’ve never met another person who handles so much knowledge as graciously, as witfully, or as wonderfully as Dr. Johnson.”
I need his embodied, unwavering, pastoral perspective midway through Lent this year and perhaps you do, too. To the end, I will leave you with one last quote from David Johnson:
“The Reformation is OVER. Perhaps we need this current unpleasantness in order to see how over it is. The time when we could reform the church by leaving it, and maintaining ourselves as little islands of purity is over. That way leads to the death of the church, and a petty, ignominious death it would be. We must come together, stay together, speak together, disagree together, quarrel and reconcile together, and let love do its slow, patient, and pervasive work.”
Amen, Dr. Johnson, amen.
