How Theological Writing Is Like Smoking a Brisket

Two time-honored crafts that make life so much better.

My friend Matt Reynolds recently called me a brisketeer on the Spirit and Truth podcast. That’s not really a word, but he made it up to describe my commitment to smoking mouthwatering brisket on my back porch. You see, I live in Ohio—a fine state in many ways—but I was raised in Texas. I grew up eating the best barbeque God ever put on this green earth (actually brown in Texas), and it’s just not the same up here in the northern territories. So I had to start making my own. No small amount of trial and error has gone into this process. It’s been a learning curve, to be sure.

So I got to thinking: another craft I’m constantly working on is that of writing, and particularly theological writing. Yes, theological writing and smoking brisket are different kinds of undertakings, but that doesn’t mean they don’t share certain common characteristics. In fact, as I thought about it, I began to see a great deal in common between the two. Behold, then, these four ways in which theological writing is like smoking a brisket.

Wesley Fryer, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

1. Both require practice.

Theological writing takes work. It’s a skill you refine over time. You learn as you go. You acquire new knowledge and make connections you hadn’t seen before. You understand concepts more fully than you did before. You become a merciless editor of your work, develop greater economy of expression, and find your own voice.

When I was in seminary, we had to write a thirty-page account of our understanding of the Christian witness called a “credo.” I worked hard on mine, but let me be frank: it stunk. I didn’t have the maturity as a theological thinker or as a writer to produce a solid document. I did the best I could with the tools I had, but my ideas needed a great deal of refinement.

Like my credo, the first brisket I made was an abject failure. I inflicted it upon Scott Kisker, who ate politely and didn’t shame me for asking him to eat the equivalent of an old hiking boot. But I knew it was bad. He knew it was bad. And we each knew the other knew it was bad, even though we weren’t saying it. I made some rookie mistakes on that first try. Inconsistent heat in the smoker and an insufficient internal temperature were chief among them. I was worried about drying out the brisket, though that’s not as much of a danger as one might think. Over time I’ve learned to avoid these mistakes.

2. You have to trim.

Look, not everything you write is great. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but that, as my dad would say, is how the cow eats the cabbage. The best writers are also the best editors. You may even have a couple of beautiful turns of phrase that just don’t advance your argument. Cut them out. Let them go. Don’t draw the attention of your readers away from the progression of your argument. Good writing is, at one level, an exercise in efficiency. Too much fat leaves your readers feeling bored and bloated.

Although it’s a newer trend (and I tend not to like newer trends in either brisket or theology), I am an advocate of trimming your brisket before you smoke it. You particularly want to take off the hard fat that won’t render. No one wants to bite into a piece of chewy, fatty gristle when expecting a glorious helping of pure Texas happiness. Trimming the fat also helps the smoke get into the meat. If you buy a good piece of meat, it should be marbled well enough that trimming extraneous fat doesn’t detract from the sublimity of the meat once it’s cooked.

3. Neither can be done quickly.

Good writing is difficult. When I write, I try to leave time to set what I’ve written aside and come back to it it later. I almost always make substantive changes. Ideas need time to percolate. Arguments need space to mature. Quick writing is of course possible. It just isn’t good in most cases.

One way you can ruin a brisket is by rushing it. Give it time. Let the smoke seep into the meat. Sure, you can use the “Texas crutch” and wrap it in foil or pink butcher paper once it hits the stall (around 160°), but that’s about it. If the temperature of the smoker is too high or you don’t get the meat hot enough, you’ll end up with a large hunk of smokey leather. Don’t subject yourself to that kind of shame. Try 200° for 12 hours, then wrap the brisket and increase heat to 250° until the brisket reaches around 205-210°.

4. Salt and fire are a good mix.

Jesus told his followers that “everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another” (Mark 9:49-50) He also taught, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13).

Salt represents the distinctiveness of Jesus’ community, the church. We have—or should have—our own flavor. We don’t blend in with everyone else. Both salt and fire can be purifying agents, so “salted with fire” is a way of saying God will purge his kingdom of sin. He will purify the hearts of the righteous and destroy that which is evil.

In theological writing, your saltiness is the extent to which you bring out the distinctiveness of the Christian witness. An insightful writer will draw forth the scandal of the gospel, its challenges to our complacency, the ways it bears new life in a land of death. When taken seriously, the gospel message is jarring. Effective theological writing will throw into sharp relief the unique features of the Christian life.

Salt and fire go well together with brisket, too. Salt is a key component of any good brisket rub. In fact, the Central Texas method is simply to use half salt, half pepper. (I normally use a more complex rub than this. Don’t hate, you Hill-Country purists.) You want to apply it the night before. The purpose of the rub is only partially to flavor the meat. I don’t know the science behind it, but the salt helps to bring out the moisture in the meat when you smoke it the next day. It also contributes to the flavoring of the bark. In case you’re not a brisket eater, the bark is a savory indulgence that accumulates on the outside of the brisket during the smoking process. It complements the flavor of the meat.

Friend, if you’ve gotten to the end of this little piece, I know one of two things about you: you’re either a strict completionist or you really like both theology and brisket. I hope it’s the latter—for your sake. Honestly, we should take brisket smoking more seriously amid this mortal coil because in heaven that’s what they’ll serve every night for dinner. There will be a giant buffet and angels will dish out generous helpings of potato salad and turnip greens and ranch-style beans, along with a few slices of white bread to go along with that heavenly, juicy, smoky, barky, tangy, salty bit of beef succulence in the sweet by and by. Until we reach that great barbeque pit in the sky, however, we just have to catch glimpses of the kingdom here on earth. So smoke on, you brisketeers.