When I was in school, “theology” was considered to be a bad word within the churches of Christ. I know that some of you think I’m kidding, but when I came through ACU in the 1980s, they did not offer any courses titled “Theology,” at least that I can remember. I think the Missions Department had an Ethnotheology class, but the “mainline” Bible department did not at that time.
There were theology classes, of course. I took “Religious Teaching of the Old Testament” and “Religious Teaching of the New Testament with Tom Olbricht, courses which had a major impact on my understanding of the Bible. They were theology classes, but couldn’t be called that.
I also took a course in modern theology. It was a two-week summer class, and the professor was out almost 50% of the time. Might as well have been called “Modern Gibberish” for all that I took away from that class. What it mainly taught me was that I was right to have little to no interest in theology.
Except that I was wrong. When I was young, I wanted practical stuff, and theology seemed impractical. I wanted here and now, and theology seemed to be about navel gazing and whimsical projections about God and man, good and evil, and the nature of sin. I wanted to know how to preach, how to organize a Bible class, and how to exegete a text to better do the other two.
I was wrong. Whether or not we call it theology, we need theology. We need to look at the big picture. We need to understand how the little things fit into the big ones. I know that now.
I don’t think my story is all that unique. Now our universities not only have courses in theology, they call themselves schools of theology. What once were called biblical studies are now called theological studies. Some will lament this trend. I think it’s healthy.
I think ministers need a healthy grounding in theology. I think our churches need theology. I think new Christian need theology more than we think they do. It sounds good to say, “We just give people good, practical teaching for their everyday lives.” But it’s incomplete. Without theology, that “good, practical teaching” won’t get people where they need to be.
What do you think? What role does theological study have in the church today? Is it just for “college boys,” or can theology be taught to the blue collar guys as well?
I sort of miss the term, “doctrine.” I think it’s a useful term, but it seems to have become encrusted with lots of bad barnacles.
I use the term “theology” but consider it imprecise. It should relate strictly to the study of God and his nature, but in common use serves as an umbrella term for all areas of divinity studies. Oh well.
We cannot faithfully function as Christians without doing theology. As Christians, we confess that “Jesus is Lord”. Very good but that invokes the following questions:
– What do we mean by “Lord”?
– How do we live under the Lordship of Jesus?
Those two questions, and the many more that could be asked, make theology a prerequisite if we are to answer them and live in response to those answers.
People who say “we don’t need theology” are naive, not to mention how such a statement is theological itself (albeit, bad theology).
Grace and Peace,
Rex
Carisse,
I wish we could restore the word “doctrine” to its good and needed place. After all, our confession “Jesus is Lord” is a doctrine.
Grace and Peace,
Rex
This is the reason for the recently-changed name “Harding Graduate School of Religion,” which had among its courses “Religious Teachings of the New Testament,” etc. Those weren’t necessarily bad terms, especially because they described without needlessly giving offense.
I wouldn’t go so far as saying that I’m useless as a Christian without having a course in Theology under my belt. As a growing Christian, I must spend personal time with the Lord not only in prayer, but in meditation and study of the bible. 1 Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. I have faith in the power of God and the purpose of the Holy Spirit, in that if I seek his wisdom, it will be revealed to me not by a degree in a picture frame on my wall, but by inspiration and teaching through the bible. That has to be the starting point for anyone his is spiritually a child or a teen for that matter. The bible was made for Christians to understand the verses and contexts within it, and are meant as the primary source of guidance in our lives. Theories and ideas are great and all, but when you have different studies and directions taken in Theology, I think it could fuel more debate from different angles, but at the same time, could cause division, fractures in the church body, and introduction of man’s wisdom rather than God’s. Great article, it really does make you think.
Oh, just remembered: at Harding Grad, the course in modern theology was called “Contemporary Religious Thinking.”
Now that you mention it, in the past, there seemed to be an absence of a systematic theology that described an orderly, rational, and coherent account of the Christian faith and belief in the churches of Christ. That vacuum often led to wildly divergent views on everything from communion to worship styles.
Tim F., I take a different view. Just because a group doesn’t use the label doesn’t mean they don’t have a “systematic theology.” I believe that 20th century Churches of Christ had one that was constantly reinforced through books, journals, lectureships, etc. One of the most influential examples was Leroy Brownlow’s book, “Why I am a Member of the Church of Christ,” which collapses all theology under ecclesiology. That is, to be right with God, to hear and believe the right things, to be prepared for judgment, etc., one must be a member of the correct church.
Journals like the Gospel Advocate served to identify and decide current questions. Lectureships served the same role, airing out and determining hot-button issues, especially in the open-forum sessions. These were the scenes where the systematic theology of the Churches of Christ was hammered out, handed down, and reinforced. And the machinery functioned very well, until it began to come apart about 40-50 years ago. It’s still working today, just not as efficiently.
To whatever extent modern Churches of Christ have had disagreements or have lacked precision, this has been the result of opposing principles such as congregational autonomy (especially the true independence enjoyed by very large churches), the right of private judgment, and our formal anti-creedal stance.
I think I had many of those same courses. Instead of theology we had History of Christian Doctrine. I took Religious Teachings of the NT too. We had a course in the catalog for the first testament but as I recall it never had enough interest to “make.” But I am so convinced you are right … we need sound theology.
Theology is “bad” when it leads only to knowing about God.
Theology is “good” when it leads to knowing God.