Theology matters
Good theology begets beautiful Christianity.
And so it follows that
Bad theology begets ugly Christianity.
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Most human activity is inherently theological, in that it reflects what we believe to be the case about God–who God is, what God wants from us, how involved God is in the world, and so forth.
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Almost every choice we make reflects what we think about God.
Tony Jones, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier
I remember being shocked when I first learned that the Rwanda is basically considered a Christian nation. A theology that allows one to kill his neighbor means that theology matters.
I’ve been considering the topic of theology in my life recently — how much of my theology is truly biblical vs. Nazarene enculturation (when/if they differ); how much of my theology is filtered through the modern/post-modern, western, white, middle-class, self-centered culture lens; can I even begin to see the world as God sees it; etc., etc. I have found great help in listening to preachers and teachers all over America and the world. The beauty of technology today is that one is not limited by immediate surroundings, experiences and teachers. I recommend two teachers that are accessible online: Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill in Seattle) and Matt Chandler (Village Church in Dallas). Neither is pulled along by the latest church trends, nor are they willing to be stuck in an irrelevant Christianity for tradition sake. I find them to be fantastic at clearly defining where our theology has stayed true to God’s intentions as revealed in scripture versus the places where we’ve made interpretations about God based on our own filters.
Thanks Jen. I started listening to Matt Chandler on your recommendation; I’m working my way through his series on Luke, and really like what he has to say. I listen to Mark Driscoll (the ‘cussing pastor’ as Donald Miller called him in Blue Like Jazz). Have a harder time with him, as I have listened to one of his talks where he ripped into Rob Bell and Brian McLaren. But I think it is good for me to listen to someone I don’t always agree with. It’s easy enough to fill my mind with what my itching ears want to hear. But I want to hear what God wants to say to me, especially where he wants me to rethink, to reconsider, to truly wrestle with my faith and my theology. It’s usually in those times when I want to chuck a book across the room because I am upset with what I am reading, that I look back and recognize the most powerful moments of learning in my life.
So I have one teacher to commend to you: Greg Boyd of Woodland Hills church (http://www.whchurch.org/), the author of The Myth of a Christian Nation. Be forewarned, he will challenge much of your standard American, western, comfortable evangelicalism. But he is a prophetic voice of truth in my life.
Bill,
Thanks for the recommendation. I enjoy having my thinking challenged. And just by the title of Boyd’s book, I think I will be plenty challenged by this man.
I haven’t heard Mark Driscoll rip into Rob Bell or Brian McLaren (2 guys I also enjoy), but would imagine he’d have a hard time with their Open Theism…. which brings me to the point of this post. Does it matter if one leans toward the belief that God lives within time with us and that he reacts to our free-will choices to manage the world (as an open theist would think)? Or does it matter if one leans toward the belief that God, who is too big and other-worldly for time, already knows the number and content of all of our days yet does not control them? I guess the quote you started this thread with would suggest “yes,” it does matter. But seeing how each point of view is somehow able to use scripture to support itself, I wonder if we’re not SUPPOSED to differ on these issues within the confines of the Bible. By differing, we balance one another — making sure we never turn into the Tower of Babel people who agreed to the point of perversion — and we prove that love has power because it’s hard to do. I wonder if God is so big that he actually embodies and IS the contradictions that we use to define: pascifist/just war supporter, communal living socialist/ambitious individual, America appreciater/anti-empirialist, traditionalist/emergent post-modern, etc. I don’t know, but I wonder.